The New Image Of The Tories

Labour disunity was a huge contributing factor as to why the conservatives were able to dominate from 1951 to 1964. However, there are also other factors that assisted conservative dominance. Whether that be conservative strengths, good timing, the end of austerity or their handle on public opinion, all factors contributed to the dominant years. However, how long the conservatives actually dominated is also a question. Did they dominate for the whole period, or just part of it? The years 1962-1964 question conservative dominance and how labour reunited.

Secondly, as Wilson faced crises in the failure of Trade Union reform and a stagnant economy, the Tories moved steadily to the right, many seeing this as a successful move by Heath. The move to the right got a massive publicity boost in Selsdon Park Hotel at a shadow cabinet meeting (January 1970) in the run-up to the election. In the public eye, the term ‘Selsdon Man’ (a phrase readily clutched by the media) meant a return to free enterprise -which directly contrasted Wilson’s policies of interventionism - the return to the values of hard work, trade union reform and a more efficient and independent industry. These ideas, although not particularly revolutionary in terms of policy for Tories, in election year provided a real incentive to frustrated voters, who looked at the struggling Wilson government whose interventionist policies were having little upswing effect on the economy. Many see the conference as an end of consensus politics, and the start of a marathon political battle between the two leaders. The fact that the Tories gained such publicity at Selsdon, and managed to convince the electorate that contrasting policies to the labour government such as the move to a more free market economy was necessary, showed Heath to be a successful leader in the outset of his campaign.

Firstly the House of Lords reform where the voting rights of most hereditary peers was abolished. This makes the UK less undemocratic rather then more democratic. This is due to the fact that the House of Lords as a whole is an unelected chamber and therefore undemocratic, however by removing the voting rights of some

The advantage that the all-party coalition gave was that it could pass measures that

In the USA, the President and the houses are elected separately, however in the UK, the Prime Minister is elected, primarily, as an MP- it is the leader of the winning party who gets the role of Prime Minister. However, in recent years, election campaigns have become really personalised- focussing more on the party leader’s personality, strengths and weaknesses rather than the party’s policies, promises and ideas as a whole. The lead up to the next general election demonstrates this: the party leaders of the three major parties have become the ‘face’ of their party’s election campaign. The media concentrates more on the party leader rather than the party as a whole- just like in USA. For the first time in British history, there is going to be live debates between the three leaders-again just like the run up to the American general elections. These points highlight that the UK is beginning to adopt some American, presidential traditions, it can be said that this is a strong sign that presidentialism is growing in the UK.

This period of Labour rule is often marked down as a poor performance on behalf of the labour party, critically looked upon by many historians. There were many failings under the rule of this government however the circumstances they were placed in caused severe restraints in their options.

The election campaign in 1964 was a close run contest even though there was a low public approval of the current Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home. The labour party only won a majority of 3 seats. The reason for the decline in support for the Conservative party was because of events and scandals such as the Profumo affair

Another contributing factor at this election may have been performance in office, which in the above statement is not seen as important as personality and image. However, performance in office may have been extremely detrimental for the conservatives in 1997 because of their crisis in 1992. This focuses on the retrospective model, as people saw the Conservatives as incompetent in handling the economy because of Black Wednesday in September 1992. The Conservatives and especially Noramnt Lamont, Chancellor of the Exchequer, were to blame for the crisis that saw the pound forced out of the ERM. This didn’t help at the 1997 general election where they did extremely badly in a huge Labour win.

The Labour government of 1974-1979 also won two elections, the 1974 February election and the 1974 October election, however both were won by a minority. The February election was won by 4 seats and the October election was won by 42 seats. The reason for the slim win is to do with inflation. The Labour governments of 1974-1979 were in office at a bad time because Britain had started to suffer from huge inflation because of the oil price rise in 1973, and so voters didn’t have a clear decision on which they were going to vote for. This shows that at the moment the 1964-1970 Labour Government was more successful by far because of their majority of 110 seats in the 1966 election.

Whether or not there truly was a ‘post war consensus’ in British politics from 1951 to 1964 is a highly debatable topic of which historians can often appear to be in two minds about; on one hand, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson infamously described the period as ‘Thirteen years wasted’, whereas historian Robert Blake (a supporter of the Conservatives’, regards it as a ‘Golden age of growth’. The likes of Kevin Jeffrey’s even argue that consensus had even started before the war. Overall, the central issue was the idea of a mixed economy.

The Falklands conflict was, in the opinion of both Thatcher and many historians believed to be a key reason for Thatcher’s re-election. The fact that the Conservatives had a jump in support of 11 per cent between February and July 1982 showed that the conflict was beneficial to the party, despite initial resistance

• Labour had to decide whether to fight the election independently or continue under Lloyd George. (Mowat: 1966: 2-3, 6-7)

During her term of office she reshaped almost every aspect of British politics, reviving the economy, reforming outdated institutions, and reinvigorating the nation's foreign policy. She challenged and did much to overturn the psychology of decline, which had become rooted in Britain since the Second World War, pursuing national recovery with striking energy and determination. In the process, Margaret

In 1997 Labour pledged a referendum on PR, but it was postponed and it has been argued that two strong political parties, Labour and Torries, would have lost the most if there were any changes in voting systems. If the referendum took place in 1997 elections, Labour majority would have to share, approximately, from 46 seats to 166 MPs with Liberal Democrats. Liberal Democrats gained 16,8% of the total votes, but won less than 10% of the total seats.

At the very end of World War 2, the British people is craving for a change in the economic and social policies of their country. In fact, the Great Depression and pre-war Conservative governments were very disappointing : Chamberlain's (from 1937 to 1940) and Churchill's (from 1940 to 1945) governments were practically only based on foreign policy (because of the war and the progressive degradation of the British Empire), and were considered responsible for not enough preparing Britain to war ; moreover, the Great Depression's various governments (Labour as well as Tories) were blamed because they did not assure the people's, and particularly the working-class'