Hammer of the Left

John Golding, a former employment minister in James Callaghan's government, union general secretary and MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, was one of the most powerful figures in the Labour movement during the party's civil war in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was instrumental in defeating the extremists and denying Tony Benn the leadership of the Labour Party, while Golding and his union allies also smashed Militant as a national force well before Neil Kinnock's famous Bournemouth speech in 1985. John Golding died in early 1999 at the age of sixty-seven. Paul Farrelly was elected MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme in June 2001, succeeding John Golding's wife Llin, now Baroness Golding. Before entering the House of Commons, he was the City Editor of the Observer and had previously worked for the Independent on Sunday and for Reuters. He worked closely with John Golding in political campaigning in Newcastle for several years and was helping him with his memoirs at the time of Golding's death.