Allan Clyde Holding (27 April 1931 – 31 July 2011) was an Australian politician who served as Leader of the Opposition in Victoria for ten years, and went on to become a federal minister in the Hawke government.

Holding was born in Melbourne and educated at Trinity Grammar School, Victoria and the University of Melbourne, where he graduated in law.

Holding joined the Labor Party as a student, and during the Labor Party split of 1954–55, during which he supported the party's federal leader, Dr H.V. Evatt,^{[citation needed]} he was Secretary of the Young Labor organisation in Victoria. As a young lawyer he was a prominent campaigner against the death penalty and in favour of the rights of indigenous Australians.^{[citation needed]} His law firm, Holding, Ryan and Redlich, became one of the leading industrial law firms in Melbourne.^{[citation needed]}

In 1962 Clyde Holding was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for the seat of Richmond, which had mostly been held by conservative Catholic Labor Party members, although his immediate predecessor, Bill Towers, was not. Clive Stoneham, who had been ALP leader from 1958 onwards, was no match for the dominant Liberal Premier, Sir Henry Bolte. ^{[citation needed]} After Labor suffered its fifth consecutive defeat at the 1967 election, Holding took over from Stoneham as party leader.

Although Holding was in some ways a social radical, he was opposed to the left-wing faction which had taken control of the Victorian Labor Party following the 1955 split, which had seen many right-wing members expelled. In particular, he supported government aid for non-government, including Catholic, schools, which the left bitterly opposed. He was a supporter of the reforming federal Labor leader, Gough Whitlam, who was determined to reform the Victorian branch as a precondition of winning a federal election. He was also a close ally of the ACTU president, Bob Hawke. ^{[citation needed]}

During the 1970 state election campaign, which some commentators suggested Labor could win as a result of voter fatigue with the Liberal government after its 15 years in power, Holding campaigned on the new federal policy of supporting state aid to non-government schools. The week before the election, the left-wing state president, George Crawford and state secretary, Bill Hartley, issued a statement saying that a Victorian Labor government would not support state aid. As a result, Whitlam refused to campaign for Labor in Victoria, and Holding was forced to repudiate his own policy. Ultimately, the Bolte government was re–elected, but Holding did manage a six-seat swing.

This episode led directly to federal intervention in the Victorian branch of the Labor Party. In 1971 the left-wing leadership was overturned by the Labor National Executive and allies of Whitlam, Hawke and Holding took control. The left then formed an organised faction, the Socialist Left, to agitate for socialist policies, supported by some unions.

Bolte retired in 1972 and was replaced by Dick Hamer, a considerably more progressive Liberal from Melbourne. Hamer represented such a sharp change from his staunchly conservative predecessor that he was able to brand himself as a reformist leader even though the Liberals had been in office for 17 years. Holding was unable to get the better of Hamer, and was roundly defeated at the 1973 and 1976 state elections. The surge in support for federal Labor, which saw Whitlam elected Prime Minister in 1972, was not reflected in Victorian state politics.