The Conservative Ascendancy: The Pattern of British Politics, 1979–90

Abstract

After the excitements of the Winter of Discontent and the Labour Government’s dramatic fall and Airey Neave’s murder by Irish terrorists at the outset of the campaign, the General Election of 3 May 1979 proved to be an anti climax, not least because some form of Conservative victory was always overwhelmingly the most likely outcome. With the Tories having no particular need to win the voters over, and, of course, no wish to alarm the electorate, what was simply called The Conservative Manifesto 1979 was a cautious document, which, indeed, stated that ‘those who look in these pages for lavish promises or detailed commitments on every subject will look in vain’.1 Only 76 per cent of those entitled to vote in the 1979 Election did so. The Conservatives secured 43.9 per cent (13,697,923) of the votes cast, and 339 seats, which meant that they had a majority of 43 in the House of Commons. The Labour Party obtained 37 per cent (11,532,218) of the votes cast, and 269 seats. The Liberals attracted 13.8 per cent (4,313,204) of the votes cast, and 11 seats. The Scottish and Welsh Nationalists both won 2 seats, and 12 MPs were also elected for other parties in Northern Ireland.2 ‘By any of the measures of swing, the Conservatives secured the biggest net movement between the two largest parties at any Election since 1945,’ the relevant Nuffield Study observed, ‘This substantial swing produced the decisive outcome of the Election; it gave the Conservatives as large a plurality of votes (7 per cent) over the next largest party as any party has enjoyed since Labour’s 1945 landslide — larger, in fact, than the 1955 and 1959 Conservative victories which produced bigger Parliamentary majorities.’3 In terms of postwar politics, then, the Conservative victory in 1979 was a remarkable achievement. ‘A dramatic day in British politics’, Benn wrote, ‘The most right wing Conservative Government and Leader for fifty years; the first woman Prime Minister. I cannot absorb it all.’4 Benn was to be given plenty of time to do so.