The Conservative victory of 1979.

The 1970s were an extremely turbulent time for the UK, with high inflation, unemployment and the troubles in Ireland and labour disputes. After losing the 1970 general election to Edward Heath, labour managed to win in 1974 and form a minority government. This came after the 3 day week and Heaths failure to deal with unions and other issues the country was facing at the time. Later in the year another general election was called, allowing labour to gain an extremely slim majority of 3 seats. This meant they didn’t have to form a coalition and could pass legislation on their own. However the issues that Heath had failed to handle only got worse over the next 5 years and ended with labour losing the 1979 general election to the conservatives. Callaghan’s defeat was massively influenced by the events of the winter of discontent and I believe that the winter of discontent was extremely important in explaining labours defeat but many other issues are also relevant and directly caused the winter of discontent and better explain the defeat.

The winter of discontent occurred directly before the election and would have been fresh in voters minds, the conservatives capitalised on this and constantly pointed out the labour governments failings and the very real effects it had on peoples daily lives. They were also under the new leadership of Margret Thatcher who was able to distance her and the party from the events leading up to the winter of discontent and promised a different approach to unions and the economy. This meant that the public mainly blamed labour and their failure to control the unions for the strikes throughout 1979. Callaghan was also slow to admit the severity and attempted to deny there was a crisis, whilst Thatcher quickly acknowledged the severity, which greatly helped her and set her apart from Callaghan and the chaos within the country. The winter of discontent and Callaghan’s handling of it seriously damaged labours reputation and public perception and clearly explains the public’s view of the election and gave the conservatives an easy way to put the blame on labour and present a different approach than the post war consensus of previous conservative and labour governments which appeared to be failing. This does explain why the labour lost the election because it impacted Callaghan and Thatchers popularity whilst also showing that labours policies had failed and that they couldn’t handle a crisis which is was extremely important in the election and allowed thatcher to swing many labour voters and give her a majority if 43 seats. The winter of discontent led directly into the election and weakened labour and Callaghan’s government even more meaning they had to call a general election after a vote of no confidence.

However the winter of discontent wasn’t an isolated incident and was the culmination of years of economic struggles, exasperated by one of the harshest winters on record. Labour was suffering from internal devisions and couldn’t agree on fundamental issues. The main argument was over labours commitment to socialism and nationalising the economy, with the more centrist Gaitskellites arguing to maintain the consensus, whilst the further left of the party argued that they should nationalise and commit to more socialist policies. Both Wilson and Callaghan were closer to the centre of the party and disagreed with far left MPs like Tony Benn on economic policy, with labour opting for a policy called the social contract to control the unions, which ultimately failed. The social contract was an agreement between the TUC and the government which put restrictions on unions and their ability to strike in return for the government repealing Industrial Relations Act and a freeze on rent increases and more food subsidies. However this ultimately failed and made the government look weak and damaged public opinion and without fixed controls on the unions the strikes from 1978–1979 were much worse than they would have been otherwise. Labours failure to control the unions through the social contract is also important in explaining their defeat.

The country was also facing over problems, not just issues with the unions. The country was also experiencing high inflation, which peaked around 24% in 1975 and began to climb again in 1979 but remained high throughout labours time in office. The government was simply running out of money and in 1976 James Callaghan’s government had to take out a $3.9 billion loan due to an imbalance of payments. The damage mainly came from the conditions of the loan. IMF loans require a country to cut spending and enter a period of austerity. The budget cuts also led to more party decisions as key members couldn’t agree on what to do moving forward and further damaged industrial relations and public opinion as they couldn’t carry out many campaign promises. The loan was extremely embarrassing for Britain on the world stage and reinforced the fact that Britain was no longer a international power. For labour to be the party who presided over the crisis, it was extremely damaging and gave voters more reason to turn to the conservatives and Thatcher, who used the currency crisis to show the post war consensus of high spending, full employment and a strong welfare state had failed. Labour failed to combat Thatchers extremely effective campaigning and couldn’t produce any alternatives that convinced the public they could run the country successfully. This also explains the defeat and certainly important to take into consideration when looking at reasons for labours electoral failure.

In conclusion the winter of discontent is important in explaining why labour lost the general election and was probably the main reason for many voters, however it doesn’t show the full picture and only occurred because of many other key events and failings. It may have been the how and the end result of the why for labours loss but it doesn’t explain fully why . Events like the IMF loan, labours failed industrial strategy and Thatchers approach and campaign are also extremely important and do a better job of explaining why.