On this day in 1994

John Smith was born in Argyll in 1938 and elected to Parliament in the general election of 1970, representing North Lanarkshire. In later years, after boundary changes, his seat was split and Smith represented the people of Monklands East.

He held several cabinet positions in the 1970s governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, and in the shadow cabinet during the Thatcher years, including shadow chancellor. He succeeded Neil Kinnock as leader of the Labour Party after it lost the 1992 election that brought John Major to Downing Street.

Election battles

Smith had joined the Labour Party in 1955 while studying history and law at the University of Glasgow. He fought two unsuccessful election battles before winning his seat and supported Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community.

Smith died of a heart attack – but not his first. He had attended hospital six years earlier, complaining of chest pains, and collapsed while on site. He spent the next eleven days receiving treatment, of which three days were in intensive care, and didn’t return to Parliament until the start of the following year. By then he was on a fitness and diet regime with a view to preventing a second attack.

Smith elected leader

When Smith was elected leader in 1992, things started to improve for Labour as he made gradual, cautious changes to both policies and the way the party was run. By early summer 1994, Labour held a commanding lead over the Conservatives, and it was very possible that Smith could have become the next prime minister.

However, on the morning of 12 May, he suffered his second heart attack. This time, he wasn’t already in hospital, as he had been at the time of his first, but in his flat in London. He died at St Bartholomew’s Hospital just over an hour later.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown

Tony Blair was elected Smith’s successor, and Gordon Brown became the party’s shadow chancellor. Together, Blair and Brown pursued a more radical agenda, which helped the party to increase its lead in the polls. At the next general election, on 2 May 1997, Labour won a landslide, taking more than 43% of the vote and bringing 18 years of Conservative rule to an end.

 

...and on this day in 2004

The Scottish Parliament picked up where it left off in the eighteenth century with the SNP’s Dr Winnie Ewing addressing the MSPs as the oldest member of the new house. As reported by the BBC, her address began, “I want to start with the words that I have always wanted to say or to hear someone else say – the Scottish Parliament, which was adjourned on March 25, 1707, is hereby reconvened.”

First Minister’s speech

In his own speech, First Minister Donald Dewar said, “Today, we reach back through the long haul to win this Parliament, through the struggles of those who brought democracy to Scotland, to that other Parliament dissolved in controversy nearly three centuries ago. Today, we look forward to the time when this moment will be seen as a turning point: the day when democracy was renewed in Scotland, when we revitalised our place in this our United Kingdom. This is about more than our politics and our laws. This is about who we are, how we carry ourselves.”

As the Scottish Parliament building had not yet been built, the parliament met at the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly Hall, where the Claim of Right had been signed ten years previously. It continued to use the Assembly Hall until the new building was opened for business in 2004.