Crossing the floor: Reg Prentice and the crisis of British social democracy

1

Introduction

Towards the end of the 1979 general election campaign the Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, remarked to one of his aides that he detected a significant shift in the mood of the country: ‘You know there are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea change in politics ... I suspect there is now such a sea-change – and it is for Mrs Thatcher.’¹ Callaghan could not have foreseen that Margaret Thatcher would become such a dominant force in British politics and that Labour would remain out of office for eighteen years. But the defection of one of his former Cabinet ministers provided an early indicator that a significant ‘sea-change’ was under way.

Reg Prentice remains the most high-profile political defector between the two main British political parties in the post-war period. By crossing the floor of the House of Commons in October 1977 he became the highest ranking Labour figure to join the Conservative Party. He holds the rare distinction of having served in consecutive governments, as a Labour Cabinet minister from February 1974 to December 1976, and as a Conservative Minister of State from 1979 to 1981. His defection preempted the decision taken by millions of voters to support Thatcher’s Conservative Party and usher in a new era in British politics. But, despite other significant conversions, he remained her only parliamentary acquisition during this period.

In the history of the Labour Party, Prentice’s name became synonymous with betrayal. His defection provoked the inevitable hostility of many of his former parliamentary colleagues, most memorably expressed by Bob Mellish, MP for Bermondsey, who referred to him as ‘a nauseating traitor’.² But the solitary nature of Prentice’s decision made it easier to dismiss him as an isolated and embittered maverick; a politician who, having been rejected by his Constituency Labour Party (CLP) in Newham North East, moved decisively to the right and found an appropriate new political home in the Conservative Party. On the Labour Left, Eric Heffer believed Prentice had always been a closet Tory,³ while on the Labour Right, Shirley Williams considered his defection to be the act ‘of a lonely man who became completely and utterly soured in his beliefs’.⁴ It is significant that some of those most critical of his decision would later leave the Party. Williams became one of the so-called ‘Gang of Four’, breaking with Labour to set up the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. Mellish became a ‘traitor’ by forcing a by-election in his Bermondsey constituency and supporting an independent candidate against the official Labour candidate.

Prentice’s defection can be viewed as an early example of the fissures that opened within the Labour Party during the 1980s. His controversial decision to cross the floor and the initial responses of former Labour colleagues helped frame his political reputation. But he became little more than a footnote in Labour history, gaining only a cursory mention within the memoirs of many former colleagues. There has, therefore, been limited discussion of the factors that led to his defection or wider consideration of his political significance. These omissions have been compounded by Prentice’s failure to publish his memoirs. Despite significant initial interest from publishers, he considered it was too early to embark on such a project while still pursuing a parliamentary career.⁵ Once he had organised his working life and felt ready to tell his story the interest from publishers had faded. By the mid-1980s, on nearing the end of his Commons career, he was a largely forgotten figure and no longer viewed as relevant to contemporary political events. Disheartened by the knock-backs, he abandoned attempts to find a publisher. A partially completed and unpublished draft of his memoirs lies amongst his private papers in the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics (LSE).⁶

Scholarly interest in Prentice’s career has largely concentrated on his well-publicised battles with his local party opponents in Newham. Renewed attention was generated during the 1980s as a result of a new phase in the continuing battle between Labour’s Left and Right, during which the Left made considerable gains in their campaign to make the parliamentary leadership more accountable to grass-roots activists. The subsequent SDP split and the changing nature of the Labour Party led political scientists to revisit the case of Prentice’s deselection by his Newham North East CLP.⁷ But it was not their objective to provide a full account of his political career or to look in greater depth at some of the wider issues, such as the underlying weakness of the Labour Right or the ability of Thatcher’s Conservative Party to appeal to disaffected Labour supporters.

Since Prentice’s death in 2001, two short biographical essays have appeared. These essays considered the wider historical significance of his political career. For David Marquand, a former Labour colleague and founding member of the SDP, Prentice’s main significance was in his ‘unsought role as a leading victim of the crisis that marginalized British social democracy for the best part of twenty years’.⁸ The political journalist Matthew D’Ancona suggested Prentice’s defection was an early indication that Labour was about to enter a period in the political wilderness, in which it lost ‘all middle-class respectability’, only to regain it some twenty years later with the emergence of New Labour.⁹ Despite their brevity, these essays provide a flavour of some of the larger historical themes related to Prentice’s political career. Yet there has been no in-depth study of how such a high-profile Labour moderate came to join Thatcher’s Conservatives.

A closer examination of Prentice’s journey across the party political divide reveals his status as a forerunner of the SDP split. The prospect of a realignment of the party system provided an ever-present undercurrent during the 1970s. Roy Jenkins considered that the possibility of a coalition government and a remoulding of the party system remained a ‘hidden might have been’ during this period, and ‘a missed opportunity’ to have changed the shape of British politics.¹⁰ David Owen suggested that many on the Labour Right felt compelled to fight on within the Party until 1981, although he admitted the Right did not fight back hard enough against the Left: ‘In our defence, it is hard to fight the Left if the Party Leader is not interested in doing so. This was the decade of what I called fudge and mudge. Neither Harold Wilson nor Jim Callaghan felt it prudent openly to confront the Left in the 1970s.’¹¹ Prentice was one leading figure on the Right who was willing to openly engage in intraparty combat. In doing so he pre-empted Labour’s internal battles after 1979, with the trajectory of his political career intimately connected to the development of an early breakaway movement. He believed the Party was irredeemably divided between the moderate social democracy of the Right and the militant socialism of the Left and – having calculated that Labour would and should split – he hoped to play an important role in precipitating a realignment. But events militated against such an outcome and ensured the Labour coalition would hold together for several more years. As a result, Prentice found himself marginalised and politically isolated. Along with other former Labour supporters and voters, his disaffection led him to view the Conservatives as the best party to tackle Britain’s political and economic malaise into the 1980s.

The 1970s continues to hold an enduring appeal to contemporary historians as a period of political polarisation and instability. An edited volume of essays appeared in 2004, providing the basis for reassessing the Labour Government of 1974–79 and asking pertinent questions about its political character and the effect of the conditions in which it operated.¹² There have also been important studies drawing attention to the underlying vulnerability and gradual fragmentation of the Labour Right during this period.¹³ Renewed interest has also been fuelled by the access to official papers. As a result of the thirty-year rule on disclosure, Cabinet papers relating to the final years of the Labour Government are now available, while revealing documents concerning Thatcher’s ascent to power have also become available at the Churchill Archives in Cambridge. This rediscovery of the 1970s was reflected in the subject matter chosen by the Centre for Contemporary British History for its annual conference in 2010. Entitled ‘Reassessing the Seventies’, the conference set out to reconsider a decade that can be seen as ‘a watershed in post-war British history with economic crises and profound political and social discord precipitating major social, cultural, political and economic changes with enduring consequences’.

Despite limited attention within the existing historical literature, it is arguable that few politicians encapsulate the turbulent and transitional nature of this period more than Prentice. With the passing of time, and the availability of his private papers, it is possible to trace in more depth one of the most intriguing political journeys in modern times. This biographical account supplements the existing literature on Labour and British politics during the 1970s, providing a reassessment of an important but neglected political career. It focuses on Prentice’s struggles within the Labour Party and the crucial events that led him to join the Conservatives. On one level it is an account of how a moderate Labour parliamentarian came to the dramatic decision to cross the floor of the House of Commons. On a wider level it sheds new light on the crisis that afflicted British social democracy during the 1970s.

Deep internal divisions impacted negatively on Labour’s effectiveness in government and contributed to the failure of British social democracy to adapt to the challenging economic climate. The various crises of the 1970s provoked divergent responses, both between and within the main parties. But by the end of the decade Britain appeared to be reaching a crossroads. Despite the continued presence of moderate centre-ground politicians within the leadership of the main parties, the continuation of a broadly social democratic approach was under pressure from adverse economic conditions and the influence of more assertive, ideologically motivated political forces. It was the Labour Left that first challenged the post-war consensus. This challenge gathered momentum after 1970, and manifested itself in Labour’s internal power struggle; a series of disputes over political direction that remained unresolved, yet divided the Party and weakened its claim to be the natural party of government. The parliamentary leadership was drained of authority at a critical time, and felt compelled to prioritise party unity over decisive governance when Labour returned to power in February 1974. The Left, having made the intellectual and political running within the Party after 1974, grew more embittered as they failed to translate this influence into control over Labour’s parliamentary leadership. Prentice took on the role of whistleblower, publicising the incompatible and dysfunctional nature of the Labour coalition. By raising his head above the parapet, and exposing the underlying weakness of the Right and the political challenge posed by the Left, he became an early casualty of the developing civil war that would consume the Labour Party and help marginalise British social democracy for a generation.

Contemporary historians instinctively gravitate towards the most illustrious politicians; the front-line leaders and decision-makers who had the greatest and most direct impact on the shape of British politics. The Attlee Professor of Contemporary History, Peter Hennessy, referred to these political figures as the ‘weathermakers’; the men and women who ‘set the terms of political trade’.¹⁴ Despite his attempts to precipitate a realignment, and the part he played in ensuring a Conservative victory in 1979, Prentice does not belong to this select group. But he can justifiably be regarded as a highly instructive weathervane, providing contemporary historians with valuable insights into the changing political climate in Britain during the 1970s. Prentice’s troubled and uncertain party political transition was symptomatic of the gradual eclipse of moderate social democracy, paving the way for the triumph of Thatcherism.

Prentice joined Labour in 1945, at the high point in the Party’s history. It was during this period, immediately after the Second World War, that the Attlee Government was able to create the framework of the social democratic post-war settlement that endured largely unscathed until the 1970s. The key pillars of this settlement are generally viewed as reliant upon the Keynesian mixed economy, in which a largely privately owned competitive market sector was overseen and regulated by the State. It was the State’s job to ensure growth and full employment through the judicious and effective use of monetary, fiscal and regulatory controls. For social democrats, successful Keynesian macro-economic management would produce the levels of growth required to fund moves towards greater equality through full employment and increases in social expenditure. State power was to be used to ensure that capitalism was made to work in the interests of specific social goals, despite the economy remaining overwhelmingly privately owned.¹⁵ Prentice joined the Conservatives at a time when British social democracy had entered a period of acute crisis. The failure of successive Labour administrations to overcome Britain’s gradual but inexorable economic malaise contributed to the long period of Conservative dominance and helped frame the reputation of the Labour Government of 1974–79 as the most ineffective and vilified in post-war British political history.

There have been attempts to reappraise the record of the Wilson and Callaghan administrations of the 1970s, providing a more objective analysis in comparison to the more politically motivated appraisals offered by partisan opponents of traditional post-war social democracy. This reappraisal has identified some connections and continuities between ‘Old’ Labour and ‘New’ Labour, as well as recognising the severe constraints and disadvantvantageous conditions that faced the Labour Government from 1974–79.¹⁶ These conditions included the seemingly intractable economic problems resulting from the end of the post-war economic boom, with low economic growth and increasing inflationary pressures making Keynesian-style economic management problematic; the exacerbation of political divisions and a reduction in the level of industrial cooperation that could be relied upon from a trade union movement; and the loss of electoral support for the main two parties, with Labour forced to govern without a parliamentary majority for a substantial amount of its period in office. Considering these conditions, it was perhaps unsurprising that the Labour Government failed to successfully steer its way through this myriad of difficulties or successfully defend the post-war social democratic settlement from its political opponents on the Labour Left and Conservative Right.

Stephen Meredith explored how the political and economic pressures of the 1970s brought to the surface underlying divisions and tensions that helped fragment and undermine the cohesion of the Labour Right during this period. He identified three main tendencies that became increasingly prominent and divided social democrats from one another:

First, the moderate, centrist, pragmatic, ‘non-intellectual’ right – legatees of Labour’s (Morrisonian) ‘consolidator’ tradition – concerned in most cases with party loyalty, party unity and the preservation of the Labour alliance. Second, the egalitarian revisionist Labour right, concerned to maintain traditional ‘Croslandite’ principles and priorities in the face of a crisis of social democratic political economy in the 1970s ... Third, an emerging liberal revisionist strand of the Labour right, which found itself increasingly alienated, not only from the left, but within the wider party and movement over a number of related political and economic themes.¹⁷

All of the above tendencies suffered from important defects. The Right’s ‘consolidator’ tradition found it increasingly difficult to resolve the inherent tension that emerged between its concern to remain loyal and uphold party unity, while opposing the neo-socialism of the Left. The ‘Croslandite’ tendency found that the crisis of Keynesian social democracy and the new era of low ‘stagflation’ made egalitarian measures, such as increased public expenditure, increasingly difficult to pursue. The ‘liberal revisionist’ (or neo-revisionist) position – with its commitment to membership of the European Economic Community (EEC), reducing inflation and public expenditure, recognition of the need for trade union reform, and the prioritisation given to a competitive market economy – arguably provided the most intellectually coherent and politically realistic way forward for a revised social democracy. Neo-revisionists, such as John Mackintosh and Roy Jenkins, acknowledged the limits of traditional post-war social democracy and the extent of Britain’s political and economic malaise, while developing a more market-oriented, decentralised approach, more focused upon a reassertion of individual liberty than collectivist state provision.

Steven Fielding has suggested that the Callaghan administration was moving gradually but inexorably towards a neo-revisionist approach, and that policies that came to be identified as ‘Thatcherite’ might well have been implemented by a Callaghan government if Labour had won a general election in the autumn of 1978 (when Labour was briefly ahead in the polls). He suggests that such policies, including reductions in income tax and limited privatisation, might well have been implemented in the 1980s without ‘the gratuitously divisive consequences of Conservative rule’.¹⁸ But, although it appeared that the Callaghan administration was adopting a pragmatic stance that chimed with the emerging neo-revisionism, much of this was done as a forced response to economic crisis and a greater awareness of shifting public opinion. The degree of acceptance of a neo-revisionist direction was necessarily limited by the realities of the Labour movement and the continued prioritisation of party unity. Callaghan remained essentially a non-intellectual ‘consolidator’, torn between his essential pragmatism and patriotism and his strong emotional attachment to the Labour movement. These loyalties inevitably stifled any neo-revisionist impulses that might have been developing within Labour’s parliamentary leadership. As Robert Taylor’s analysis of the Social Contract between the Labour Government and the trade unions shows, social democracy was fatally damaged by the attitudes of the trade unions, in alliance with a rejuvenated Left. The tragedy of social democracy was that the British economy required a major transformation in the structure and culture of industrial relations, but Labour was unable to engineer such a change: ‘However, it seemed sadly that only a determined and ruthless centre-right government could carry through such radical and unpopular change and not a Labour movement under the strong influence of the trade union interest.’¹⁹

Prentice was one of the first front-line Labour politicians on the Right to openly advocate a new political approach and a fundamental adjustment by British social democracy to the harsher economic conditions of the 1970s. To borrow Meredith’s typology, he began his parliamentary career as a pragmatic, non-intellectual ‘consolidator’. In the changed political and economic context of the 1970s, however, he became a convert to the developing neo-revisionist analysis. But his experience during this period, including his isolation and rejection by the Labour Party, showed how such a new approach could only ever be partially implemented, and then only either by stealth or as part of a strategy of crisis management. The shift in philosophy and policy direction that it entailed was utterly unacceptable to the wider party, and at odds with the neo-socialist prescriptions being advocated by the Left from their influential powerbases within Labour’s internal institutions and policymaking committees. Prentice came to realise that a neo-revisionist social democracy that was able to effectively respond to Britain’s long-term economic malaise, and to defend parliamentary democracy and the rule of law from the Left, was only possible outside the Labour Party. Yet, having explored the potential for a realignment of British politics, he came to the conclusion that the crisis of social democracy was so intractable, and the tribal nature of British politics so strong, that the post-war consensus could no longer hold. His defection represented the final realisation that he would have to fall into line with the realities of an increasingly polarised two-party system. A new consensus, in which neo-revisionist social democracy could re-emerge as a political alternative to Labour Left and Conservative Right, would only become possible with the advent of New Labour, and only after one of the most politically divisive periods in post-war British history.

This book offers a biographical account of a neglected yet important figure who found himself at the centre of events during a crucial period in British politics. It also provides a case study of the dilemmas and difficulties facing the Labour Right in the context of the severe problems that afflicted the post-war social democratic settlement. The internal party divisions that emerged, and the subsequent prioritisation of party unity, prevented the Right from effectively developing a new consensus around a coherent and unambiguous neo-revisionist response to the crisis of social democracy. A detailed examination of the events and issues surrounding Prentice’s decision to defect to the Conservatives reveals the full extent of the adverse political and economic climate, and the failure of the Labour Right to renew the post-war social democratic settlement during a critical period in British political history.

Notes

1     K. O. Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 697.

2     Sunday Telegraph, 9 October 1977.

3     E. Heffer, Never a Yes Man (Verso, 1991), p. 146.

4     D. Kogan and M. Kogan, The Battle for the Labour Party (Kogan Page, 1982), p. 35.

5     Reginald Prentice Papers, London (RPP) 6/1, correspondence concerning an autobiography.

6     RPP 6/14, RPP 6/17, The Rubicon papers.

7     Kogan and Kogan, The Battle for the Labour Party, pp. 33–5; P. Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left (Macmillan, 1987), pp. 61–2, 114–15; E. Shaw, Discipline and Discord in the Labour Party (Manchester University Press, 1988), pp. 187–95.

8     D. Marquand, ‘Prentice, Reginald Ernest (Reg), Baron Prentice (1923–2001), Politician’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2005.

9     M. D’Ancona, ‘Reg Prentice (Lord Prentice of Daventry)’, in G. Rosen (ed.), Dictionary of Labour Biography (Politicos, 2001), pp. 470–2.

10   R. Jenkins, A Life at the Centre (Macmillan, 1991), p. 426.

11   D. Owen, Time to Declare (Penguin, 1992), pp. 212–13.

12   A. Seldon and K. Hickson (eds), New Labour, Old Labour: The Wilson and Callaghan Governments, 1974–79 (Routledge, 2004).

13   See D. Hayter, Fightback! Labour’s Traditional Right in the 1970s and 1980s (Manchester University Press, 2005); S. Meredith, Labour’s Old and New: The Parliamentary Right of the British Labour Party 1970–79 and the Roots of New Labour (Manchester University Press, 2008).

14   P. Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders Since 1945 (Penguin, 2000), p. 544.

15   See A. Przeworski, Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 207.

16   Seldon and Hickson (eds), New Labour, Old Labour, pp. 1–2.

17   Meredith, Labour’s Old and New, p. 18.

18   S. Fielding, ‘The 1974–9 Governments and New Labour’, in Seldon and Hickson (eds), New Labour, Old Labour, pp. 293–4.

19   R. Taylor, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Social Contract’, in Seldon and Hickson (eds), New Labour, Old Labour, p. 103.

2

Labour moderate

Prentice’s early career provided few indications of his future status as one of the most controversial figures in Labour history. During his first fifteen years as an MP, from 1957 to 1972, he remained a conventional politician, committed to pursuing a quietly effective parliamentary career. He attracted few column inches in the national press, reflecting a tendency to focus his energies upon worthy but unglamorous political causes, often related to his knowledge of industrial relations and concern for the most vulnerable groups at home and abroad. But, although not yet a high-profile figure, he had established the basis for a successful career. There was, at this stage, little reason to believe he would not remain in the Labour Party throughout his political life.

Far from being a maverick whose allegiance was open to question, Prentice had, according to Jenkins, ‘the best core of the party qualifications of any of us [on the Right]’.¹ These qualifications included his background as a former Borough Councillor in Croydon and his previous experience of working on the staff of the largest trade union in Britain, the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU). He was held in high regard by his fellow Labour parliamentarians, who viewed him as a conscientious colleague with a record of honest endeavour. He was not considered a divisive or controversial figure. Marquand, a former parliamentary colleague, described Prentice in the early 1970s as ‘a peaceable, faction-scorning moderate’, able to appeal to all sections of the party on different issues.² The Times referred to him as ‘a middle-of-the-road Labour Man’.³ Such terms as ‘moderate’ and ‘middle-of-the road’ describe a rather non-ideological and pragmatic politician, sometimes difficult to place on Labour’s traditional Left–Right spectrum.

Those who do not fit neatly into the ideological predispositions and group associations of the two opposing wings of the Labour Party are often assigned to the more amorphous, non-doctrinaire centrist tradition. It has been argued that the Labour Centre has been a constantly changing position, moving in alignment with the Party’s general climate of opinion.⁴ The centrist label appeared to be the most accurate assessment of Prentice’s position in the early 1970s, fitting his self-evaluation after resigning from the Labour Government in 1969. Remarkably, considering the future trajectory of his career, he viewed himself as ‘a centre man who now stands on the left of the rightward shifting Wilson administration’.⁵ During this brief period as a Labour backbencher, his views and political positions seemed to reflect the broad movement of the Party, including acute disappointment with Labour’s record in office and opposition to industrial relations reform and British membership of the EEC.

Prentice’s position before 1972 was in retrospect that of a disaffected Labour moderate entering a period of political transition. He was not yet aware of the economic crises that would face governments of both major parties in the ensuing years. He also remained unsuspecting of the nature of the leftward shift gaining ground within the Labour movement. The internal divisions that opened after the 1970 general election defeat evoked previous bitter disputes. In the wake of an earlier dispute, after the 1959 election, Prentice strongly associated himself with the Right, as a loyal supporter of Hugh Gaitskell’s leadership. When internal party hostilities resumed after 1970, a new and stronger Left emerged, strengthened by a more militant and politically assertive trade unionism. The newfound influence of the Left was reflected in the changing composition of the National Executive Committee (NEC), the enhanced numerical strength of the Tribune Group within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), and the more left-wing tone coming from many CLPs. This broad coalition was united by a determination to ensure the Party accepted and implemented a more radical socialist programme, and was predicated on making the parliamentary leadership more accountable to the views of the trade unions and the Party’s grass-roots activists.

The increasing influence of the Left coincided with Prentice’s elevation to the front line of Labour politics. In responding to this changing political climate within the Party, his moderate social democratic principles and former Gaitskellite associations reasserted themselves. A man whose political views and approach were formed in the Labour Party of the 1950s, when the Right of the Party was ascendant, was increasingly unable to reconcile himself to the changing nature of the Party after 1970. He subsequently emerged as a leading champion of political moderation, openly critical of the influence exerted by a resurgent Left and a more militant trade unionism. His outspoken and uncompromising stance placed him at odds with the leftward shift, and increasingly critical of the leadership’s failure to reassert the Party’s moderate social democratic traditions.

Early life

Reginald Ernest Prentice was born on 16 July 1923, the only son of Ernest and Elizabeth Prentice of Thornton Heath, Croydon. His family background provided him with a suburban upbringing that, although by no means privileged, was comfortable and stable. His father’s changing occupational status and the importance that his family attached to educational improvement displayed a strong concern with upward mobility. Ernest was a skilled craftsman who became a works manager at a small factory in Brixton, which specialised in manufacturing medical instruments such as cardiographs. The Prentice family’s sense of social aspiration was also clearly identifiable in the choices made over their son’s schooling. Although he attended the local elementary school, Prentice succeeded in gaining a scholarship to Whitgift, a private fee paying school in South Croydon.

His parents were Conservative supporters but, during his teenage years, Prentice developed a different perspective, influenced by the arguments of a schoolmate whose father was a Labour Councillor. His views led to some fierce debates with his father, who employed the traditional debating point made by an adult to an adolescent: ‘when you get older you’ll know better’.⁶ It is tempting to view this comment as a premonition of his future political allegiance. Later, on joining the Conservatives, Prentice regretted that his father did not live long enough to say ‘I told you so.’⁷ More than thirty years of service, however, would prove that his allegiance to Labour was no passing whim. Once his interest in politics was affirmed, he was moving with the political tide in turning to Labour for solutions to the nation’s problems. Like many others, Prentice blamed the pre-war Conservative Party for much of the poverty and unemployment that blighted Britain in the 1930s, and was attracted by the leadership of Clement Attlee. He was also in favour of the policies Labour proposed for the post-war period, including a programme of social reform founded upon a planned economy, a welfare state and an end to colonialism. His original decision to join Labour was based upon these key issues and he never regretted his decision. Despite his later defection, he continued to believe that Labour had come up with the correct diagnosis in 1945.⁸

His developing political convictions were strengthened by his wartime experience, during which he served as a temporary civil servant at the Ministry of Pensions from 1939–42 and as a member of the armed forces in the Royal Artillery from 1942–46. He gained a commission as a gunner lieutenant in 1943 and took part in the Italian campaign with the Eighth Army. At the end of the war his support for the Labour Party was formalised when he became a member in December 1945. After demobilisation in 1946, Prentice studied economics at the London School of Economics. Amongst others, he was taught by Professor Harold Laski, one of the leading socialist intellectuals of his era and a high-profile figure on Labour’s NEC. In parallel with his studies, Prentice also became active in his CLP in Croydon, where he met his wife-to-be, Joan Godwin, through their involvement in the local party. Their marriage, in August 1948, was the start of a lifelong partnership, in which Joan would prove to be his closest and most constant supporter.⁹

His ambition to pursue a political career was quickly apparent when he became a Labour candidate for Croydon Borough Council. He was unsuccessful in Thornton Heath ward in November