"The longest suicide note in history" is an

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

originally used by United Kingdom Labour MP

Gerald Kaufman Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (21 June 1930 – 26 February 2017) was a British politician and author who served as a minister throughout the Labour government of 1974 to 1979. Elected as a member of parliament (MP) at the 1970 general election, ...

to describe his party's 1983 general election manifesto, which emphasised

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

policies in a more profound manner than previous such documents—and which Kaufman felt would ensure that the Labour Party (then in opposition) would fail to win the election.

Document

''The New Hope for Britain'' was a 39-page booklet which called for

unilateral __NOTOC__ Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find disagreeable. As a word, ''un ...

nuclear disarmament Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space * Nuclea ...

; higher personal taxation for the rich; withdrawal from the

European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...

; abolition of the House of Lords; and the re-

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...

of recently

privatised Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

industries such as

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...

and the British Shipbuilders Corporation. The manifesto was based on an earlier and much longer policy paper with a similar title, ''Labour's Plan: the New Hope for Britain''. The epithet referred not only to the orientation of the policies, but also to their marketing.

Labour leader The ''Labour Leader'' was a British socialist newspaper published for almost one hundred years. It was later renamed ''New Leader'' and ''Socialist Leader'', before finally taking the name ''Labour Leader'' again. 19th century The origins of th ...

Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...

decided as a statement on internal democracy that the manifesto would consist of all resolutions arrived at in its

party conference The terms party conference (UK English), political convention ( US and Canadian English), and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a political party. The conference is attended by certain delegates who represent the party membe ...

. The document's more

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

policy proposals, along with the popularity gained by

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

over the successful outcome of the

Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial ...

and the division of the opposition vote between the left-wing Labour Party and the

centrist Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the ...

Social Democratic Party – Liberal Alliance, composed of breakaway Labour MPs on the right wing of the party, contributed to a victory with a substantial majority in Parliament for the

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that view certain social orders and Social stratification, hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this pos ...

Conservative Party Government. The defeat, Labour's worst result since the 1918 general election, led to a turning point in the history of the party, which thereafter gradually moved to the right under the leadership of

Neil Kinnock Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...

and then under the leadership of

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of t ...

in the 1990s rebranded itself as "

New Labour New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...

" and

Third Way The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born from ...

. Blair led Labour back to government in a

landslide victory A landslide victory is an election result in which the victorious candidate or party wins by an overwhelming margin. The term became popular in the 1800s to describe a victory in which the opposition is "buried", similar to the way in which a geol ...

at the 1997 general election, fourteen years and two general election defeats later.

Other uses of the phrase

It has subsequently been used by Peter Gutmann in his paper "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection" to describe the

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted work ...

schemes in the

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

operating system. Dutch VVD politician

Mark Rutte Mark Rutte (; born 14 February 1967) is a Dutch politician who has served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands since 2010 and Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) since 2006. After a business career working for Unileve ...

used the phrase in reference to the election programme of the

Dutch Labour Party The Labour Party ( nl, Partij van de Arbeid, , abbreviated as ''PvdA'', or ''P van de A'', ) is a social-democratic political party in the Netherlands. The party was founded in 1946 as a merger of the Social Democratic Workers' Party, the Free ...

, during the May 2010 parliamentary election campaign, deliberately echoing Kaufman. In the United States, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' columnist

Charles Krauthammer Charles Krauthammer (; March 13, 1950 – June 21, 2018) was an American political columnist. A moderate liberal who turned independent conservative as a political pundit, Krauthammer won the Pulitzer Prize for his columns in '' The Washingt ...

compared the 2012 Republican House Budget to the manifesto (in terms of comparable unpopularity) and then remarked of the American House Budget, "At 37 footnotes, it might be the most annotated suicide note in history."

Neoconservative Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and count ...

writer David Frum compared ''

The Path to Prosperity ''The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America's Promise'' was the Republican Party's budget proposal for the Federal government of the United States in the fiscal year 2012. It was succeeded in March 2012 by "The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for ...

'', proposed by congressman

Paul Ryan Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American former politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the vice presidential nominee i ...

, in a similar light, saying "This is how a great political party was impelled to base a presidential campaign on the Ryan plan—a plan that has now replaced the 1983 manifesto of the British Labour Party as "the longest suicide note in history." However, this title since 2010 belongs to Mitchell Heisman's 1900 pages long book. Labour's decision in 2015 to engrave promises for the upcoming election on a large stone monument nicknamed the " EdStone" (after leader

Ed Miliband Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliba ...

) was within hours dubbed the "heaviest suicide note in history".

George Eaton George Ross Eaton (born 12 November 1945) is a Canadian former racing driver who is a member of the prominent Eaton family. Life and career Eaton was born in Toronto, he is the youngest son of John and Signy Eaton. He gained attention as a Can ...

predicted that immediately after the snap 2017 election, politicians and political writers would dismiss ''For the Many, Not the Few'', Labour's left-wing manifesto in that campaign, as "the new 'longest suicide note in history'" (it was 128 pages long) but its policy proposals would remain popular with Labour members as well as voters as they increased their vote share by 9.6%.

References

External links

Labour Party Manifesto 1983
(Archived) {{DEFAULTSORT:Longest Suicide Note In History English phrases History of the Labour Party (UK) Party platforms British political phrases 1983 United Kingdom general election Michael Foot 1983 in British politics 1983 documents 1983 neologisms

Document

Other uses of the phrase

See also

References

External links