History of England 1-6

There were moments of farce to enliven what otherwise promised to be a cosily predictable result. George Brown went so far as to punch a student who had heckled him. He was to lose his seat, alas, to the surprise of none. Crossman was uneasy, however. ‘We have given [the electorate] three years of hell and high taxes. They’ve seen the failure of devaluation and felt the soaring cost of living.’ Yet all the auguries suggested not only that Labour would win but win comfortably. The superstitious Wilson was convinced that, as in 1966, the World Cup would prove his biggest asset. It was perhaps unwise, however, to indulge too close an association between Labour’s success and that of the national team; on Sunday, 14 June, England was kicked out of the tournament by West Germany. Some felt that the tide had turned.

Ted Heath, dour and unpersonable though he might be, was pulling his considerable weight in his party’s cause, to great effect. When he spoke on television, many were struck by his urgency and clarity. By contrast, Wilson came across as complacent and superior. Then arose the worry that Labour voters might not turn out in the numbers needed. It took all too little to tip the scales – a shift of no more than 5 per cent. The Conservatives won 46 per cent of the vote and 330 seats; Labour 43 per cent and 288 seats; while the Liberals had to make do with six.

Wilson contrived to remain phlegmatic; perhaps he knew that his era had not quite ended. He bequeathed to his successor a balance of payments rather less than projected, and a nation rather less optimistic than it had been some six years before. Indeed, among the many swansongs for the Sixties, a gentle ballad by the Stones perhaps best captures this mood: ‘No Expectations’.

45

Bugger them all

When Edward Heath received applause, it was with an open-mouthed beam. It was as if, beneath his carapace of surly self-reliance, he could not quite believe his good fortune. But this smile was seen after concerts he had conducted, not after his electoral win. The expression he wore when he walked into Downing Street was more sombre – there was work to be done. It has been said that the choicest prey for nemesis is the man with too many talents, and this was certainly true of Heath. A skilled yachtsman, conductor and musician, he was also a far abler politician and prime minister than many allowed at the time or have conceded since. His failure, if such it was, was a table of misfortunes ready-laid for him. Then he had his own nature with which to contend. More than any prime minister before him, he was convinced of his self-sufficiency.

Douglas Hurd recalled the moment when he realized that the election had swung to the Conservatives: ‘The car radio persisted in telling us extraordinary good news … Extraordinary to me, but not to Mr Heath. To him it was simply the logical result of the long years of preparation, and of the fact that the people of Britain, like the people of Bexley, were at bottom a sensible lot.’ Heath had planned for power, and his appointments reflected this. Many of the old guard were to remain, and others to be promoted. It was a ‘young’ cabinet, with forty-seven the average age. His ‘power base’ was to be formed of those who owed everything to Heath himself. His mood may be inferred from an uncharacteristic instance of vulgarity: ‘Bugger them all,’ he is said to have exclaimed. ‘I won.’ ‘They’ were the naysayers, the sneerers and jeerers of the Tory right and of the press. However, they were not yet routed, whatever Heath may have hoped.

It was unfortunate that Heath’s premiership should have coincided with a miners’ strike in January 1972 followed by a dockers’ strike in July of the same year, both of them ominous auguries. Nor did matters improve when the government, having so loudly proclaimed its compassion and commitment to ‘fairness’, announced that it would be renewing sales of arms to South Africa. This, and the Rhodesia question, would sour relations with the Commonwealth for years to come. But, as Heath never wearied of explaining to the nation, there was work to be done. The dockers’ strike led to the proclamation of the first state of emergency. Four more were to follow.

Of all the relations that concerned the people, particularly after the compromises and failures of the previous government, those with the unions loomed largest. On television, Heath was challenged on the question. ‘Would you face a general strike?’ ‘Yes. I have always made it plain. I have said we are going to carry out a thorough reform of industrial relations.’ He promised, too, a ‘quiet revolution’. Such revolutions rarely set the public aflame, and this was to be no exception.