UNDER new Labour we’ve got used to the idea that party conferences are highly managed affairs where political drama and uncensored voices of ordinary party members are blanked out.

Then along comes Harry Leslie Smith to remind us of what politics is actually about.

The 91-year-old RAF veteran and retired carpet salesman’s speech was the most electrifying and authentic moment during the Labour Party conference and a lightning rod for the big political battle in this pre-election year —  saving the NHS from Tory privatisation.

If Miliband, who spoke to Smith at the conference, could bottle what Smith has and imbibe even 10 per cent of it, the critics of his stilted persona would be silenced and Ukip’s “We speak like the people” baloney would be knocked for six. The Tories would be sent into a panic and have to steal the formula.

Exaggeration? In fact, in an echo of Smith’s appearance, David Cameron invited delegates at the Tory conference in Birmingham to applaud another 91-year-old war veteran in an attempt to grab some of that magic for himself.

Smith described almost unimaginable hardships growing up in Barnsley and warned the party not to let the country return to the bad old days before the NHS. 

It moved many to tears, including shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, and it will do the same to you if you watch it on YouTube.

In his book Smith describes surviving “colic, flu, infection, scrapes and bangs without the benefits of modern sanitation, hygiene or healthcare,” for which he gives thanks to “my sturdy peasant genes.”

His sister was not so lucky. She contracted TB aged four and died six years later in a workhouse infirmary because his family could not afford the medical care she needed. In her last weeks her father tied her to a bed to control her thrashing.

I met Smith shortly before the TUC march today, where he will be speaking at the rally before Len McCluskey.

Of his Labour speech, Smith recalls: “It was the first time I ever used a teleprompter. A Labour MP came up to me afterwards and said: ‘You crafty bugger, you walk up there with a notebook and you stand up there and talk like a professional’.”

Harry’s Last Stand is Smith’s fourth book, combining autobiography with polemic against the destruction of the post-war welfare state.

Smith is heart and soul old Labour, urging a return to the social democratic society that has been dismantled since 1979.

“We really have to return to a nation of fair play through protection of the most vulnerable and ensuring our middle class grows, that we support new industries,” he tells me. “But that doesn’t mean handing out endless subsidies to business.

“There was a time in the second world war when business realised that its survival required the survival of everyone. Economic growth now is about the enrichment of the few over the many.”

He recalls the first time he went to the doctor aged 22 after the war and feeling how incredible it was that he could be treated under the new National Health Service. 

“Before that I never went to a doctor. I couldn’t afford to. It cost five shillings — the same as paying the week’s rent.”

He was widowed 14 years ago and lost one of his sons, a schizophrenia sufferer, in 2009. Then, in his eighties, something changed.

“I was in Portugal in 2008, testing the waters, thinking I might like to retire there. I was 84. Then this crash occurred and, after I read all I could about that fiasco and that no-one was ever punished for this disaster that caused misery for millions of ordinary people, I started to think in all honesty I could not retire from the world.”

By that time he had the basis for Harry’s Last Stand. 

“I didn’t want it to be full of dull statistics,” he says. “I wanted to write a book that ordinary people would enjoy reading and understand. 

“My book is something that people have been longing for. I’m someone who has no axe to grind. I’m not a politician — I’m only concerned with the direction the country is going. I like to think that at 91 I can speak my mind and make a difference at the coming election.”

He describes Last Stand as an “impassioned argument for civilisation over the hedge-fund mentality.”

Smith clearly speaks for many and has touched a nerve with his articles in the Guardian over the last year.

Last summer Smith caused a storm when he wrote that he would no longer be wearing a poppy because of the way the government was using the memory of the war dead to promote militarism.

From a veteran of the second world war who had served his country in the RAF, his words mattered. It was shared 60,000 times on social media.

“I feel that society is simply becoming what I call ‘them and us’ — them at the top and us at the bottom. I am so sorry for the young today with student loans and leaving university with £30,000 in debt before they’ve even started in life.

“The government is selling off everything. It really shocked me when they sold off the water. What does someone do who can’t pay their water? Do they go without?”

It is the social contract that was established after the war that Smith wants to see restored. 

Smith enlisted in the RAF as a way out of poverty. It gave him a roof over his head and a square meal each day for the first time in his life. 

While stationed with the RAF in Hamburg after the war, Smith met his future wife, who was German. She joined him in England, a period of his life described in his trilogy of autobiographical books. Later they emigrated to Canada and raised a family.

He was one of a generation of working-class men who made a life for themselves in the post-war years. He has travelled the world and enjoyed a good life, although not without hardships.

“When the war ended in 1945 it brought in a period of three years of happiness and contentment for everyone,” he explains. 

“There was no hunger or destitution. It was possible for anyone with almost any job to save enough money to put a down payment on a house.”

Such a possibility is a distant dream to people on ordinary incomes looking for a home of their own in 2014.

Since his new book was published he has found both young and old relate to the story it tells of how the most vicious aspects of capitalism — poverty, hunger and disease — were remedied by the great reforms of the 1940s.

“So many people I meet have parents or grandparents who went through exactly what I went through and they can realise that this is something that has to be remedied.

“This government says we can’t afford to look after people but the people of their class are not suffering. They say poor people are on the take, when they are not. They are simply trying to exist.

He has always been a member of the Labour Party in Britain and Canada and says the party will need a solid majority to push through a programme to change the country in the teeth of ruling-class opposition. 

But then I remind him that Blair had a majority in all three of his governments.

“Blair was the biggest mistake the Labour Party made,” he replies. 

“There he is now talking about boots on the ground in Iraq, which is the worst possible thing. He tried to suggest you can solve [the Isis problem] in a couple of months but we know from the last time that it will take years. I always think Tony Blair has been money first, conscience afterwards.

“In my mind somehow I always get a feeling our politicians are not ‘for the people and by the people.’ They are puppets in the hands of industrialists who tell them what to do. This business of parcelling out every part of government to private companies has got to stop.”

So can Labour change its record and deliver this time? 

“I think there is an answer to this but it will need a very strong man at the top to enforce fair play for everyone.”

Which brings us to the current party leader. Smith met Ed Miliband at the Labour Party conference and spoke to him. I ask if he thinks the Labour leader is the man to do this.

“He could do it if he is assertive. I told him you have a chance to go down in history as the greatest prime minister this country has ever had, but you have to listen to the people.”

Did he get the point? Smith smiles and says: “Who can tell?”

Smith v Brand

THERE are apparently moves afoot to bring together Smith and comedian and self-styled revolutionary Russell Brand, although this could prove tricky, given that Smith is not a fan of Brand’s politics. 

Both have new books to promote but this may not be enough to bring about a Brand-Smith tete a tete.

“Our differences are too great,” says the 91-year-old. 

“We might get into fisticuffs. Anyone who suggests we might get to a revolution in Britain is a nutcase. All these people with 10 or 20 million in the bank, they can say what they like because if anything goes wrong they can get on a plane and bugger off.

“People like me who have experienced austerity in its greatest form can tell what it’s really like.

“If I was being truthful, the youth are following because he is a comedian. He makes them laugh — we all need laughter — but his revolution is the wrong direction to go.

“Russell Brand is so miserable probably because he did not have a good childhood. He can’t be classed as working class. He’s one of the 1 per cent.”