Who Governs Britain?
The 1973 general election came a month after the 17th March meeting between the government and Britain’s trade union leaders. Entering the election with a manifesto composed of the pledges of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to Vic Feather and Jack Jones, Labour believed that victory was in reach.
A legislative recognition of closed shop agreements, a 5% pay increase for all public sector workers, cuts to public sector managers’ wages, and the promise of a new Tax Reform Committee set up in conjunction between the Treasury and the DEA to re-evaluate the different rates of income tax: these were the pledges that the government promised the TUC on the 17th March that would be repeated in Labour’s manifesto – Labour Works For You – for polling day on the 19th April. Of course, not everyone agreed to the deal made with the unions. There was a feeling that this “heartfelt contract” would be broken soon enough and that Labour would agree to any terms. It was a feeling especially felt amongst middle-class voters who were beginning to grow weary of the “class war rhetoric” from the government.
Despite Labour’s insistence, disquiet grew within the party. It was, as the right-wingers foretold, the feeling that Labour was deserting the millions of middle-class voters that had seen the party through to victory in both ’64 and ’68. Bargaining with the unions only added to Labour’s image problem.
Contrasted with the Conservatives, Labour appeared worn and weary after nearly a decade in government. It was a clear reversal of the party images in 1964, where Labour had been the younger and more modern party whilst the Conservatives appeared tired and frustrated by crisis upon crisis. Maurice Macmillan had, due to the aura that remained around his father and due to his own personable nature, trumped Castle in three quarters of the polls leading up to the general election. The Conservative manifesto – A New Deal For Britain – was the kind of inspired amalgamation of progressive rhetoric and One Nation principle that had fallen out of favour since Maurice’s father occupied No. 10. Within the document, promises were made to create a new “Council of Industry” with the co-operation of the TUC and the Confederation of British Industry, legislate against the militancy of the shop stewards’ movement, preserve the “necessary” nationalisations of the Greenwood and Castle governments, and cut the “oppressive weight of socialist taxation” to encourage growth in business.
For the Conservatives, “Macmillan the Younger” was a breath of fresh air after the hectoring and haphazard leadership of Enoch Powell. Had he been leader in 1973, most commentators believed that Powell would have been booed out of every local Conservative association from Bodmin to Banffshire. Macmillan, on the other hand, exuded a similar charisma to his father. He was easy-going, unflappable, and appeared to find his country-wide tour of walkabouts pleasurable rather than taxing. He was a man brought up for the family business, which provided him with the qualities that Castle and her cabinet lacked: a patrician attitude and a clear mind for business. Amongst the Labour leadership, there weren’t any politicians of a similar outlook. The only leader who could have feigned that kind of persona would have been Anthony Greenwood, or so many believed. Greenwood was enjoying his retirement, however, and had announced that he would not be standing in the 1970 election. In doing so, he opened the way for the young moderate and former secretary to Barbara Castle, Betty Boothroyd, to join Parliament after fifteen years of attempting election to Westminster. Greenwood’s inclusion in the Resignation Honours List of 1973 confirmed that his return to frontline Commons politics was over, for he was known thereafter as Baron Greenwood of Rossendale.
Though Macmillan’s Conservative Party was often between four and eight points ahead of Castle’s Labour, the actual results of the election demonstrated the fallibility of the pollsters.
Labour dropped from 351 seats to 303, a much shorter fall in seats than had been expected. The Conservatives climbed high, however, to win a slim majority with 321 seats. The Liberals, the consistent sideshow to the great divisions of the two-party system, lost a single seat to the Conservatives and decreased to nine seats. With an effective majority of just seven, the Conservative Party was thrust into a precarious situation.
The Labour Party regrouped and coalesced around their outgoing Prime Minister, with most talk of coups against Castle being quashed by the end of May and a new election expected within the next year. There was little time for internal squabbles when, just as the government and the TUC believed that they would begin upon a path to economic recovery together, Labour was thrown out of power and the task of bringing unions and businesses together was left to the Conservatives. Still, a small majority wasn’t imperturbable. If, as most anti-Marketeers believed, Macmillan forced Britain’s entry to the EEC, then a motion of no confidence could make quick work of the Conservatives’ mandate and cause another election. In such times, continuity was needed and Castle would eventually remain as leader of the Labour Party for another two years.
Though it appeared Britain hadn’t chosen decisively enough, Maurice Macmillan formed his government on the 20th April and appointed his cabinet. Anthony Barber became Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Whitelaw became Home Secretary, and Francis Pym was sent to the Foreign Office. Other important appointments included Lord Carrington to the Ministry of Defence and Edward du Cann to the Department of Economic Affairs (an appointment that was so significant it was made redundant by the department’s abolition in July of that year).
This was the beginning of the second Macmillan era: the true beginning of the 1970s.