28th February 1974 General Election. Tories asked ‘who governs Britain?’ & lost
The February 1974 General Election: periods of upheaval in post-1945 Britain
It is 50 years since the General Election of 28th February 1974 which was narrowly won by Labour and started a process that led to the first Referendum on the then EEC (now EU) in 1975.
Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath called the Election on 7th February 1974 and on 10th February the miners who had been involved in an overtime ban began an all-out strike. Heath had imposed a three-day working week from 1st January 1974 which meant that all non-essential commercial premises were limited to three consecutive days of electricity in any week. At the same time TV which had had to shut down at 10.30pm every night was allowed to broadcast for longer throughout the Election campaign. Inflation figures announced on 15th February revealed a 20% increase in prices over the previous year.
Heath’s focus in calling the Election was to confront the trade unions and labour movement directly with the slogan ‘Who Governs Britain?’. The Tories attack on the Labour Manifesto may sound familiar.
The Tories in 1974 claimed that ‘Labour today faces the nation committed to a Left-Wing programme more extreme than ever before in its history’. It will be difficult to make the same claim with Starmer’s Labour but reality is at an angle to such campaigns.
The outcome of the Election on 28th February revealed a polarised nation split down the middle. No doubt today centrists would be arguing that faced with a Tory Government that had introduced a three-day week and shut down TV early Labour should win a massive majority. In reality Labour got 301 seats to the Tories 297. Liberal leader Thorpe was unable to reach agreement on propping up Heath, unlike Clegg several decades later, and Harold Wilson headed a minority Labour Government.
The answer to Heath’s question as to who governed Britain, the Tories or the trade unions, had produced an interesting response. The miners got a 35% pay rise but 10 years later in 1984/5 the Tories took their revenge.
Lee Anderson’s racist rants contained a reference to the unions and the 1970s and while that won’t be the focus of the hard and far right Election campaign, if you replace ‘unions’ with ‘Islam’ you can see where this might be going.
The good news from 50 years ago is that it didn’t work
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