WI Jim Callaghan had survived the vote of confidence in March 1979?

OTL, he lost by one vote, but Bernard Weatherill offered to abstain as a pair with the critically ill Labour MP Sir Alfred Broughton, which would have meant a tie and a Speakers' deciding vote in favour of the government, due to an agreement with his opposite number Labour whip. The Labour whip released him from the agreement and the rest is history...

So, would this have made any difference at all?

It would have enabled Denis Healey to bring in a budget the following Tuesday. Callaghan announced in the debate that the government was to bring in a rise in pensions that November, so what other measures could Healey have introduced to try and make the government more popular?

Rumours abounded in the weeks up to the vote that Callaghan was planning a June election to co-incide with the European Parliament elections, on an anti-European platform, protesting against the influence the EEC was having on British law and the economy. Prominent Labour figures who would later become known as Euro-sceptic, such as David Owen, had already started making speeches to pave the way, and this could have been an interesting strategy - it would have forced Thatcher to either come out as a Euro-sceptic, and split the Tories who still had a huge bloc of Heathites - or made her look 'soft on Europe', which is never popular. (As it was, Europe never even featured as an issue in the 1979 campaign.)

The other option for Callaghan was to go right through to October - could he have used the summer to have patched things up with the Unions sufficiently to have clawed back some credibility as the party that could work with the unions?

Two other unknowns - would the INLA still have killed Airey Neave with no election in the immediate offing? Would David Alton have still won the Edge Hill by-election the next day?

The opinion polls did close up considerably in the immediate run up to May 3rd... I'm wondering if another month, or more likely another five months, could have closed them sufficiently to, maybe not win it for Labour, but deny Thatcher an outright win as well?

(which would have made 1979-83 look very different indeed....)
 
I think the game was up for him as the Winter of Discontent had swung the electorate decisively in Thatcher's favour. IIRC some opinion polls of the time had Tory leads pushing 20%, the fact that Callaghan was able to pull most of that back during the campaign and avert a worse defeat is a great tribute to him.

I suspect Alton would still have won that by-election tipping the parliamentary arithmetic even more against him. The Nationalists were also pissed off over devolution and it's difficult to see how he could have managed to keep the show on the road much longer.
 
I suspect Alton would still have won that by-election tipping the parliamentary arithmetic even more against him. The Nationalists were also pissed off over devolution and it's difficult to see how he could have managed to keep the show on the road much longer.

Thatcher would not have tried another confidence motion. She failed with every one she put down.
The one in March 79 had been put down by the SNP, who would never have backed a Tory one.
I suspect the SNP might have revised their strategy and tried to get more concessions out of Callaghan for him to buy a few more months. Callaghan was still considering overruling the turnout clause in the Scottish referendum and pushing through devo anyway.

The Airey Neave question is fascinating, as the whole attack was based on the election. (The IRA were hoping to bring in a hardline Tory government so they had a better recruiting proposition. They were actually trying to swing sympathy votes to Thatcher, as well as wipe out someone who had good relations with moderate Nationalists.).

Gerry Fitt actually reckoned Neave would have tempered Thatcher's fierce anti-Nationalist line, so he might have handled the hunger strikes in a different way (assuming he becomes NI Sec in a Tory government with a small or non-existent majority in a later election).
 
In his Thatcher biography, John Campbell notes that Callaghan had given up hope by that point and planned a May 3 election regardless of the vote's outcome. So the difference is a voluntary rather than involuntary dissolution with the same outcome as OTL.
 
In his Thatcher biography, John Campbell notes that Callaghan had given up hope by that point and planned a May 3 election regardless of the vote's outcome. So the difference is a voluntary rather than involuntary dissolution with the same outcome as OTL.

Ahhhhh... well that's a bit of a thread killer! Though he did hint during his speech that he was planning an imminent dissolution, but many took that to mean June 7 on a Europe campaign.

I'll have to look at that book, but is it speculation or a confirmed quote? Callaghan had form to shirk from facing an election at the last minute.

All along he insisted Sir Alf Broughton should not be brought to the Commons, suggesting that he had given up... but at the last minute he said yes, if he wants to come, bring him, which suggests Callaghan might still have summoned up enough energy to go for a later date.

It was too late by then though, and Walter Harrison had also turned down Bernard Weatherill's offer as well.
 
Ahhhhh... well that's a bit of a thread killer! Though he did hint during his speech that he was planning an imminent dissolution, but many took that to mean June 7 on a Europe campaign.

I'll have to look at that book, but is it speculation or a confirmed quote? Callaghan had form to shirk from facing an election at the last minute.

All along he insisted Sir Alf Broughton should not be brought to the Commons, suggesting that he had given up... but at the last minute he said yes, if he wants to come, bring him, which suggests Callaghan might still have summoned up enough energy to go for a later date.

It was too late by then though, and Walter Harrison had also turned down Bernard Weatherill's offer as well.


"... he had already pencilled in May 3 for an election." Not speculation but an interview with one of his senior staff.
 
"... he had already pencilled in May 3 for an election." Not speculation but an interview with one of his senior staff.

Fair enough lol. But WI Airey Neave had survived is still a good question. He was one person Thatcher always listened to, and may have been more conciliatory in NI than people expected, given his friendship with Gerry Fitt. An earlier Anglo-Irish agreement may have been on the cards, though not with Haughey.
 
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