by Kevin Meagher

Those Labour MPs on the Right of the party who stuck to their guns through the 1980s, seeing-off attempts to deselect them and fighting to keep the flame of British social democracy burning, eventually paved the way for the party’s renaissance.

They are the unsung heroes of Labour’s long and often turbulent history. Without them, there would, in all likelihood, not even be a party today.

Gerald Kaufman. Ann Taylor. John Smith. Members of the Solidarity Group of Labour MPs.

People of ability who saw their best years wasted during the party’s obsolescence in the 1980s.

But they didn’t give up.

Sensible, pragmatic politicians who stood their ground with dignity and defiance amid the lunacy of the time.

They could have flounced off to join the SDP with those egocentric traitors: Owen, Jenkins and Shirley Williams.

But they didn’t.

They kept their fury and despair inside the Labour family.

Eventually, the party pulled through. Equilibrium was restored. Sooner or later, enough people want to actually win elections.

Where are their successors today?

All of which is an around about way of saying Tristram Hunt is a disgrace.

The MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central (pro tem) and sometime frontbencher is quitting his seat so he can skip off to run the V&A.

Not off to be an aid worker or run a charity for ex-offenders, mind you. To return to the bosom of London’s chattering class from whence he came.

To be fair, Hunt has always given the impression of being a lost soul in the people’s party and a poor fit to represent a seat like Stoke. An imperious dilettante.

In his resignation letter to local members, he speaks of how being an MP can be ‘intensely frustrating’.

A bit like the frustration some of his erstwhile members felt when he was shoe-horned into the seat in 2010, causing long-serving members to quit the party in disgust.

Hunt owes his voters and the party some basic dedication.

Heaven knows MPs have enough spare time to pursue other interests. If being a Labour MP is now such a bore, he could have just quit at the end of the parliament.

Rumours abound of further such departures.

Flapping Labour MPs really need to get a grip.

Just like the 1980s, the party can and will come through its current difficulties.

That process becomes more likely and will happen faster if sensible people of good faith once again stand their ground and don’t run off and hide in grand museums.

If Labour MPs got off their self-pitying backsides and did some work rather than moping around.

Without wishing to sound overly, pious, being a Member of Parliament should be a calling, not a rung on the career ladder.

Not a bullet point on the back of an envelope, as part of some inexorable ascent to greatness, a la Michael Heseltine.

At one time, that was a given.

Labour politicians were committed to their beliefs and the people they represented.

I’m sorry the Labour party hasn’t been able to make Tristram Julian William Hunt prime minister before his 43rd birthday, but that really is no reason to abandon his post.

Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Uncut

Tags: by-election, dilletante, fix, Kevin Meagher, Stoke Central, Tristram Hunt