No Lib-Lab Pact?

Would this mean Thatcher is the one to face the Winter of Discontent? Or is that event thoroughly derailed by the Thatcher government's different actions in the years before?

I wonder what this might do to British military spending - does Thatcher cut the military budget and focus away from the world and onto the Soviets earlier? If so, we'd likely see an earlier Falklands War, which might be very interesting.

What would this do to the Liberal Party? I do read alot that the Lib-Lab pact did alot of damage to the Liberals, but I'm not sure I trust the objectivity of those accounts...

fasquardon
 
Would this mean Thatcher is the one to face the Winter of Discontent? Or is that event thoroughly derailed by the Thatcher government's different actions in the years before?

I wonder what this might do to British military spending - does Thatcher cut the military budget and focus away from the world and onto the Soviets earlier? If so, we'd likely see an earlier Falklands War, which might be very interesting.

What would this do to the Liberal Party? I do read alot that the Lib-Lab pact did alot of damage to the Liberals, but I'm not sure I trust the objectivity of those accounts...

fasquardon

thatcher might face a winter of discontent, but she would also have brought back the tough union laws of the heath government

we might see an early falklands invasion, but I don't think its probable. Videla had a stronger grasp on power than galiteri, so wouldn't need a distracting war as much.

The liberal point is an interesting one, the liberals obviously lost a lot of potential voters after the lib lab pact, as well as taking more labour votes. If the liberals moved towards the centre right (obviously steel will need to go as leader before this can happen), then through the 1980s they could split the tory vote and keep labour in power.
 
Delaying an election wasn't just in the interests of Labour, it was also in the interests of the Liberals, who had just lost a leader to a bizarre sex scandal*. Lib-Lab might have cost them votes, but so did Jeremy Thorpe.

*Though they can probably thank their lucky stars it was only Thorpe, and not Cyril Smith too.
 
Delaying an election wasn't just in the interests of Labour, it was also in the interests of the Liberals, who had just lost a leader to a bizarre sex scandal*. Lib-Lab might have cost them votes, but so did Jeremy Thorpe.

This was before my time, but it is often given as the raison d'etre for the Lib-Lab pact, to take the government down at that time would have been a case of Turkeys voting for Christmas.
 
what would happen to labour in opposition?

any thoughts?

The left would blame Healy and Callaghan for the defeat on account of the IMF crises, this would give Foot or even Benn a good chance to win the leadership election.
In power Thatcher would yet to have fully established her grip over the party and would likely be unable to implement a full monetarist program as she did in 1979 due to the One Nation types in the cabinet.
 
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