Harold Wilson wins in 1970

MrHola

Banned
I don't know alot about UK politics so go easy on me. So what if Harold Wilson wins the 1970 General Elections? Who would be next? Let's say Labour manage to get 400 Seats.
 
Heh, see the "What if Gordon Banks had played?" TL which is knocking around on the intertoobs somewhere... basically it ends up with Enoch Powell as PM - :eek:.

EDIT: Here it is. It's been up there with no update since 2003, but what the hell, it's a good read... OK, it has the 1970 Labour govt in with only a small majority, but never mind.
 
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Wilson wins in 1970

He would have had serious problems with both the trade unions and his own left wing. With inflation rife and the unions not having experienced the Industrial Relations Act inflation would be as bad as under Heath.

He would have had problems selling EU membership to his own party and might have ended up being forced into a national government or a General Election which given the state of the economy the Tories would have won. Maybe he would have lasted until early 1974

I suspect he would have had problems with Northern Ireland maybe a loyalist strike. He would probably have been worse of than he was in the long run through losing
 
400 seats is one hell of a landslide election victory, even factoring in English triumph in the World Cup. Labour could gain a workable majority but not a landslide, not unless Ted Heath is caught in full flagrante dellecto with a 14 year old boy in the middle of the Commons Chamber.

Tony Benn would have caused Wilson the most headaches as he was entering the "akward" phase of his political career. The technocrats might have actually done well for Britain as she was not yet pushed out of the global industrial market. Indeed, it wasn't until the 1980s when the British computer industry was finally killed off and Britain did have a good command of the aerospace and railway industries.

I would like to see a victorious Labour Government able to impose the recommendations of the "In Place of Strife" white paper as it has been commented that the rejection of this radical document sent Labour down the tubes for the next 3 decades. Wilson (in opposition) came up with a plan for Northern Irish independence which might get enacted.
 

MrHola

Banned
About ''In Place of Strife'', if you want to get it pased, you just need an alternate Home Secretary. James Callaghan led the opposition to it and he succeeded.
 
A better country overall.
No 4 years of Tories pulling in the opposite direction only for Labour to come in again.
There'd still be trouble though, the problems in the UK at the time were due to world affairs, even the best PM imaginable couldn't have sorted those.
 
He would have had serious problems with both the trade unions and his own left wing. With inflation rife and the unions not having experienced the Industrial Relations Act inflation would be as bad as under Heath.
I assume you mean this one. Might Labour not have brought in their own Bill, under the same name but with different effects? What did the OTL Bill actually do (except altering various limitations on / definitions of strike action)?
He would have had problems selling EU membership to his own party and might have ended up being forced into a national government or a General Election which given the state of the economy the Tories would have won. Maybe he would have lasted until early 1974.
Why a national government? This is Labour with a large absolute majority: 400-c.250=150 seat majority. Even if there are well over 50 rebels, Labour still has no problem getting stuff through Parliament.
 
Ironically, wasn't Heath the Conservative PM supposed to be gay? In that case you could have World Cup win AND Heath outed before the election for a Labour win.

Lots of interesting run-on effects there...
 
Ironically, wasn't Heath the Conservative PM supposed to be gay? In that case you could have World Cup win AND Heath outed before the election for a Labour win.

Lots of interesting run-on effects there...


Yes Heath was rumoured to be gay. I suppose the effect of any potential outing would depend how close the election was. I'm not sure how close it was but I know it wasn't as close as 1974.

Even back in the 1970's I can't see a potential outing of someone's sexuality turning around political opinion and voting intention that much if there was a strong feeling against a certain party. For instance an openly gay or to use another example a black leader of the Tories would definitely still have won in 1979 or 1983 (but 1970 was a different matter).

Anyway, as Labour had in the 1960's reputation for being more socially liberal than the Tories, I can't see anti-gay sentiment suddenly switching to Labour.
 
Northern Irish independence? Interesting.

Yeah - it was supposed to be enacted over either a 10 or 25 year period on the grounds of "sort it out yourselves".

On mtg999's point, in 1970 there were plenty of trade unions and ordinary voters running around wearing "Enoch Was Right" badges and trying to get him reselected as a Tory MP (rather than an Ulster Unionist). If Enoch (or one of his supporters) could unearth concrete proof of Heath's sexual orientation then I think it'd be used to its fullest. Sex between men was decriminalised in 1967 but that hardly led to the opening of more tolerant climes. David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust was a few years away and glam rock wasn't yet ready to embrace androgyny. Even the Carry On films, who had a number of gay performers and were the mainstay of British cinema in the 60s and 70s looked down their collective noses at it. There were all sorts of wild stories in the media about it being linked to child abuse, bestiality and other weird rubbish - gay politicians of the time like Tom Drieberg and Maureen Colquhoun were firmly repressed by the Party Whips.
 

Thande

Donor
I don't think Heath was actually gay, but even if he was, how scandalous could it be? Plenty of people seemed to think so at the time, it's not as though it's a complete shock. (I agree that if a happily married and unsuspected PM was outed then it would be a scandal at the time and he would probably have to resign, but Heath?)
 
On mtg999's point, in 1970 there were plenty of trade unions and ordinary voters running around wearing "Enoch Was Right" badges and trying to get him reselected as a Tory MP (rather than an Ulster Unionist).

Ehh, Powell was a Tory and MP for Wolves SW until '74. There would be no bar to him standing for the leadership - which he almost certainly would do - and he may have won it. (Although I think that it would be on balance unlikely.)
 
Oh, and the 'problem' with Heath being outed (and probably why he was never outed, if indeed he was gay, historically) is that he was just such a loner and misanthrope that any 'evidence' for him being gay would be so totally slight if not actually non-existent. We're not talking about Tom Driberg here. Think of a male version of Ann Widdecombe and you are closer to Heath's actual personal habits.

What would you use as 'proof', exactly? The fact that he liked sailing?
 
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I wonder what the end results of that would be...

I've tried looking for the 16 point plan but alas my search engine techniques have failed me - I shall hang my head in shame. And it was a 15 year plan. Ted Heath welcomed the plan but then sat on it until the Sunningdale Agreement.
 
Wilson wins in 1970

I thought it was recently established that Heath was not only gay but lived dangerously like Tom Driberg and the special branch were aware of it and presumably the home secretary so in theory he could have been outed at the last minute and it would probably have ensured the tories lost as it may be a non issue now but nearly 40 years ago it wouldn't have been.

A lot of people knew about Tom Driberg but there were skeltons in the Tory cupboard that the Tory whips didn't want revealing so they largely ignored Driberg's private life according to Driberg's memoirs. Powell might have known but if he were to gain the reputation of having lost the election for Heath they would go for someone else.

I suspect rising unpopularity and strikes would have brought the government down of forced a coalition and public opinion by that tyime would be more ready for anti union laws as they were when Thatcher came to power. Any EU rebellion would involve more than 50 left wing M.Ps as any rebellion over in place of strife would
 
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