The events that led to the formation of the SDP were also formative years for me as a very young man becoming fascinated with politics.
I can recall Roy Jenkins giving the Dimbleby Lecture and the Labour party conference of 1980 when the left won every vote on key issues such as Europe and Defence.
Then the elevation of Michael Foot to the post of leader an election in which many had thought the moderate candidate Denis Healey would triumph.
James Callaghan had timed his resignation so that MPs would elect his successor before a conference arranged to discuss changing the method of election was held at Wembley.
Callaghan knew that the conference would adopt an electoral college system widening the franchise to include trade unions and constituency parties.
This change would give a left wing standard bearer a much better chance of winning.
Healey bungled his chances by alienating key moderates and the dye was cast. It wasn’t long before he would face a strong challenge for the deputy leadership from Tony Benn.
By then Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers had walked out of the party taking a substantial number of MPs with them.
They formed a new party the SDP.
An electoral arrangement with the Liberal Party followed, by-elections were contested and some famously won.
For a time, opinion polls indicated that the Alliance, as the two party arrangement became commonly known, were leading in the nations popularity stakes.
It didn’t last and by the time of the 1983 General Election the Tories with the self styled Iron lady at the helm had recovered from an earlier slump in support largely on the back of victory in the Falkands war.
That election was the beginning of the end for the new party.
The inequities of the First Past The Post voting system meant Labour got 209 seats with 27 per cent of the vote and the Alliance 23 with 25 per cent!
In the years that followed leading up to the next test of national opinion in 1987 the SDP continued but survival became increasingly questionable.
A merger of the two Alliance parties came in 1988.
A rump SDP continued for a while but it was finished as a serious political force.
Now in 2018 as something of a political veteran I find myself wondering if we will see another breakaway fom Labour along similar lines to those that brought us the SDP.
The circumstances are certainly similar.
The left is more in control of Labour than at any time in its history and some of their MPs are visibly struggling with the new regime.
However whatever else can be said of the politicians who founded the SDP they were clearly people of principle who took a massive step, risked their futures and walked way from a party they loved.
Sadly I don’t see their like in today’s Labour party.
A breakaway should occur but I won’t hold my breath waiting for it.
* David Warren is a lifetime political activist for progressive causes and a liberal.