Bernard Donoughue on James Callaghan

“He likes the Ulster Unionists – much more than the Liberals – because they are his kind of straight, tough old-fashioned conservative people.”

“[H]e of all people is the best man to oppose Thatcher – the calm bedside manner beside the raucous authoritarian figure. Also the best man to handle unemployment and make it an issue which really wins for Labour. JC really cares about unemployment, not in a soft bleeding way...but is affronted by it... Jim cares more about the party, or rather the movement, than Wilson. Wilson was an academic, Callaghan a trade unionist. Their origins are very important. Wilson ultimately got fed up with the party because it became too much of a problem to control it. Callaghan never really has. Wilson was not at heart a trade-union man, Callaghan is totally a trade-union man or he is nothing.”

“Watching James Callaghan over the coming months and years, I observed a very commendable man, quite different in style and character from Harold Wilson... Most different from the previous regime was his strong sense of values – really like those of a nonconformist Victorian, with deep feelings of responsibility towards the underprivileged and a strong sense of right and wrong (where Harold was often ambivalent).”