10 - Igniting a Spark

Summary

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

David Marshall was not one for half measures. Finding himself the president of the Labour Front, he now plunged furiously into trying to get the semblance of a party going. The constituent groups within the Front were fractious to begin with. Indeed, the Singapore Labour Party (SLP) pulled out of the Front in October 1954 after the list of candidates for the 1955 general elections was announced. Under the Rendel Constitution, the newly constituted Legislative Assembly would comprise 32 members, of whom 25 would be elected by popular ballot. David looked about him and realized that, though he was surrounded by a number of men who had some labour union experience, none of them had actually held any significant position in government or served in any significant capacity in the public service, save for Lim Yew Hock who had previously served on the Municipal Commission. David himself was nervous about his lack of political pedigree. He was anxious to galvanize his troops, equip them for battle, and win the war.

David turned to his old friend Malcolm MacDonald — Britain's Commissioner for Southeast Asia — for help. MacDonald, who himself came from an illustrious political family and whose father, Ramsay MacDonald, had twice been prime minister of Britain, suggested that the Front should bring someone out from the British Labour Party to be full-time organizing secretary. This suggestion did not go down well with David's colleagues in the Front and was abandoned. David decided that he would have to take matters into his own hands and get himself a political education. He decided to spend four months in early 1955 learning the ropes at Transport House — headquarters of the British Labour Party in London — all at his own expense.

In the meantime, a delegation of British Labour members of parliament was scheduled to visit Singapore on 7 August, 1954. At 7:15 p.m., David went to Kallang Airport to receive the group that included Aneurin Bevan, Edith Summerskill, Morgan Phillips, Ernest Earnshaw, Burke, and Franklin. That night, he took both Earnshaw and Phillips to the Raffles Hotel for drinks and found them both solid but unimpressive. The next day, he hosted the group for lunch and was suitably impressed by Edith Summerskill and Morgan Phillips.