Back in 1981, a bitter battle was being fought for the soul of the Labour party. Two totemic figures of the party’s Left and Right wings went head-to-head for the deputy leadership. In the end, Tony Benn — a doyen of the Eighties New Left scene — lost by the tiniest of margins to Denis Healey, who stemmed the flow of moderate MPs to the breakaway Social Democratic Party, and set in motion Labour’s project of “modernization”.
