With the death of Pope Francis, the world loses not only a church leader but also a moral compass
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Remembering John Smith
The late John Smith, pictured in 1993
LYNNE WALSH previews the Bristol Radical History Conference this weekend
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ON SUNDAY many will be remembering the late Labour leader John Smith, 25 years on from his death. In a counterfactual history (as part of The Prime Ministers Who Never Were, Biteback, 2011), the writer and journalist Francis Beckett imagined if he had instead recovered from his heart attack.
In this fantasy, “Smith was happy, after September 11 2001, to send British troops to Afghanistan, but he drew the line at committing himself to war in Iraq, and made common cause with the French.”
Tony Blair never rose further than education secretary — and Gordon Brown’s hopes were thwarted by his “old nemesis Ken Livingstone, to whose 10-year occupancy of No 10 we owe, among much else, our pedestrianised city centres.”
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