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Division!
British politics since 1974



With his loss In the second election of 1974, Edward Heath was looking more and more unelectable. Despite high inflation, the Labour Party under Harold Wilson was in a buoyant spirit, and their victory in the October polls painted Edward Heath as a man who had lost his way. With the Ulster Unionists refusing to take the Conservative whip in the Commons, the situation inside the Party was one of division and caution. Indeed, if one thought the Labour Party divisions between left and centre were destructive, they would be enamoured by the sheer ferocity of the internal strife afflicting Heath's Conservatives. The leaders supporters, those who subscribed to his One Nation ideology, were largely seen as weak and out of touch by a number of backbench MPs, whose concerns were only enforced by the General Election loss.

Indeed, come 1975, with the referendum on the EEC fast approaching, a group of influential right wing Conservative MPs met to discuss a potential candidate to fight Heath for the leadership. They gambled that Heath's unpopularity would unite many Tory MPs behind one candidate, whether they be a right winger or not, and thus reasoned that it was in the party's best interest to put a candidate favourable to the right wing of the party at the forefront of the leadership election (which by now was just a matter of time away). The group, including Airey Neave, Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph, decided that respected backbencher and chairman of the 1922 committee Edward du Cann would be the perfect candidate, and immediately began sounding out potential support from within the parliamentary party.

When the leadership election came in May 1975, a month before the referendum, there was broad speculation (one would even say optimism) that du Cann was ready to unseat Heath as leader of the Conservatives. However, as the leadership election drew ever nearer, du Cann's flagship business, Keyser Ullman, was declared bankrupt, an affair which Heath and his supporters leapt on. Further embarrassing revelations about the affair continued to be uncovered, and du Cann's leadership bid was effectively over with the news that his company could have gone bankrupt as early as December 1974. Heath had hung on to power, at least for now.


Conservative leadership election- May 1975

Edward Heath- 198

Edward du Cann- 65​

With the divisions in the Conservative Party still rife, despite the conclusive leadership results, Wilson's Labour government saw an opportunity to deliver key welfare legislation (an integral tenet of his election campaign manifesto). Following the resounding “yes” vote in the European referendum in Britain (this was down mainly to support from all three Party leaders and the majority of the press), Prime Minister Wilson went about enacting legislation aimed at reinforcing the British welfare state. A state earnings related pension scheme was introduced. A new pension, which was inflation-proofed and linked to earnings, was added to the basic pension which was to increase in line with earnings for the first time ever. This reform assisted women by the linking of pensions to the 'twenty best years' of earnings, and those who worked at home caring for children or others were counted as contributors. These popular measures saw Labour's poll ratings boom, as the opposition Conservatives looked in a state of disarray.
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