WI Wilson wins the 1970 UK election?

IOTL Wilson didn't wait long enough and as soon as things started upticking he pulled the plug. The rest is history. Let's say Wilson follows the conventional wisdom and waits till the autumn of 1970. Obviously the Tories will make gains but will still lose. What happens over the next 4 years? Since Heath has suffered 2 consecutive defeats by large margins, will he resign or have to be dragged out kicking and screaming as per OTL?
 

The first Alternate History timeline that I ever read and one that first brought me to this forum (blame WIGBHP for me in other words) but it is rather on the dystopian side of things (albeit rather realistic).

For a course of action more like OTL, I would agree that Heath would perhaps have to go, the Conservatives may have been rather loyal to their leaders back then but losing two election in a row would be perhaps too much for the 1922 Committee.

However, with a centrist Labour government still fairly popular with the public (if Wilson had won, it would have been with a sharply reduced majority) then the Tories would go with another figure in the Heath mould although perhaps one with a bit more passion and fire, I think Heath would eventually get around to resigning before being assassinated in the hope that he would manage to return as Foreign Secretary or Chancellor later in life.

Given the state of the economy in the '70's as well as the increasingly factionalised Labour Party, when the next election comes ANY Conservative is going to have a good chance of being Prime Minister so the contest will almost certainly be a divisive and highly contested one. Thatcher would be too inexperienced, Keith Joseph too unpopular and Douglas-Home wouldn't be recalled. Whitelaw is the obvious but boring choice so I would be tempted to go with either Maudling (although if the Poulson Scandal happens as in OTL he may go mid-term) or Jim Prior.
 
Wilson won't do any better- he may well do worse than Heath did, with the exception of not trying to permanently damage US-UK and Commonwealth relations as Heath did IOTL. Especially with all the industrial strife. The Tories will eventually come to the conclusion that they need a change in ideology, not just a change in leader.
 
The problem I see is that Powell could well become leader. Prior, Maudling and Whitelaw are probably all 'more of the same' and the Conservatives may end up with him.

What is likely to be different from WIGBHP would be the way the Labour Party loses. Just have to hope that Heath et al, STAY within the Conservatives as a moderating influence, the Conservatives win in 1974, but don't do anything quite as mad as they did in Gordon Banks (War with Ireland!) and the security services also don't try and maintain any terror alert.

That being done (and it is likely they would stay more 'sane') then the Conservatives bumble on for a couple of terms, tackling the Unions somewhat, being quite freemarket and making for a radically different 1980's, possibly with a long period of Labour from 1982 to the early 1990's.

Would Britain be in the EU (or EEC then)? Perhaps not.....
 
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