In post-war British politics, there have been four periods of Labour Party governance: 1945â1951 under the leadership of Clement Attlee; 1964â1970 under the leadership of Harold Wilson; 1974â1979 under the leadership of Wilson again and then James Callaghan; and the 1997â2010 period under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. There have also been four periods of Conservative governance, and three of those periods have lasted a decade or more: 1951â1964 under the leadership of Winston Churchill; Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home; 1979â1997 under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher and John Major; and the period since 2010 under the leadership of David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. The fourth period of Conservative governance was the 1970â1974 premiership led by Edward Heath and it holds an unwarranted distinctionâit is the only post-war premiership to be removed by the voters at the first opportunity.
All of the aforementioned eras involved some form of re-election for the governing party. The Attlee premiership that entered office in 1945 (majority 146) did secure re-election in 1950 (majority six) before losing office in 1951; the Wilson premiership of 1964 (majority four) secured re-election in 1966 (majority 99) before being defeated in 1970; and the second Wilson era entered office as a minority premiership in March 1974 and secured a small majority (of three) at the General Election of October 1974. The Blair era would involve three successive election victories and majorities of 179 (in 1997), 167 (in 2001) and 66 (in 2005). The three long-serving eras of Conservative governance saw the party securing stronger parliamentary performances when seeking their first re-election. They re-entered office in 1951 with a parliamentary majority of 17 and their majority increased to 59 in 1955 (and increased again to 100 in 1959). The victory that the Conservatives secured at the General Election of 1979, with a majority of 44, was followed by three further victoriesâin 1983 with a majority of 144; in 1987 with a majority of 102; and then a majority of 21 in 1992. Their return to office in 2010 as a coalition with the Liberal Democrats was followed by three further General Elections in the next decade, all of which resulted in the Conservatives holding onto powerâin 2015, they secured a majority of 12 under Cameron; in 2017, they failed to secure a majority but held onto office as a minority premiership (under May); and finally, they held a majority of 80 under the leadership of Johnson in late 2019 (see Cowley and Kavanagh 2018; Cutts et al. 2020).
What must have been distressing for Heath personally was the performance of the Conservatives while he was their party leader, relative to their performances before and after his party leadership tenure. As Table 1.1 demonstrates, he led the Conservatives into four successive General Elections between March 1966 and October 1974 and he led them to three defeats alongside one victory at the General Election of June 1970. The four General Elections prior to him being leader of the Conservative Party (1951â1964) involved them winning three out of four, and the four General Elections after he was leader of the Conservative Party involved them winning all four (1979â1992). The 1951â1959 era saw the Conservative vote base oscillate between 13.1 and 13.7 million. Between 1979 and 1992, their vote base peaked at 14.0 million (in 1992) and was at its lowest in 1983 at 13.0 million, when ironically they secured a landslide parliamentary majority of 144 caused by the nature of the fragmentation of the Labour (27%) and Social Democratic Party (SDP)/Liberal Alliance vote (25%) (Butler and Kavanagh 1984). When the Conservatives lost power at the General Election of 1964, their vote fell to 12.0 million (down by 1.7 million from the 13.7 million secured five years earlier), but that decline did occur at the end of a 13-year period in office. Their vote base when losing office in 1964 (at 12.0 million) was larger than the vote base that the Conservatives secured in February 1974 after only three and half years in officeâ11.8 millionâand the vote share in 1964 was significantly larger (at 43.4%) than the vote share in February 1974 (at 37.9%). That the electorate was sceptical of the merits of the Heath premiership was confirmed by their performance in the second General Election of 1974, when their vote share fell further (to 35.8%) at a vote base of 10.4 million (Butler and Kavanagh 1974, 1975). Between the General Elections of 1970 and October 1974, the Conservatives lost 2.7 million votes and they experienced a vote share reduction of 10.6 percent. That was the Heath effect and, much to his chagrin, the Thatcher effect was just as pronounced but in the opposite direction. Between the October 1974 and May 1979 General Elections, the Conservatives gained 3.2 million votes and increased their vote share by 7.9% (Butler and Kavanagh 1980). That the Heath era seems a failed era for the Conservativesâthe so-called self-proclaimed party of governmentâis evident from the fact that the General Election victory of 2019 was their 8th General Election victory out of 11 General Elections since his era.
Table 1.1
The electoral record of the conservative party (1945â2019)
Election | Elected Conservatives | Percentage share of vote | Total votes received | Government and majority | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1945 | 213 | 39.8 | 9,577,667 | Labour | 146 |
1950 | 299 | 43.5 | 12,502,567 | Labour | 5 |
1951 | 321 | 48.0 | 13,717,538 | Conservative | 17 |
1955 | 345 | 49.7 | 13,311,936 | Conservative | 59 |
1959 | 365 | 49.4 | 13,749,830 | Conservative | 100 |
1964 | 304 | 43.4 | 12,001,396 | Labour | 4 |
Heath era | |||||
1966 | 253 | 41.9 | 11,418,433 | Labour | 97 |
1970 | 330 | 46.4 | 13,145,123 | Conservative | 31 |
1974 F | 297 | 37.9 | 11,872,180 | Labour | Minority |
1974 O | 277 | 35.8 | 10,464,817 | Labour | 3 |
1979 | 339 | 43.9 | 13,697,923 | Conservative | 44 |
1983 | 397 | 42.4 | 13,012,315 | Conservative | 144 |
1987 | 376 | 42.3 | 13,763,066 | Conservative | 101 |
1992 | 336 | 41.9 | 14,092,891 | Conservative | 21 |
1997 | 165 | 30.7 | 9,602,957 | Labour | 179 |
2001 | 166 | 31.8 | 8,357,622 | Labour | 167 |
2005 | 198 | 32.4 | 8,772,473 | Labour | 66 |
2010 | 307 | 36.1 | 10,726,555 | Conservative-Lib | Dem Coalition |
2015 | 330 | 36.9 | 11,334,226 | Conservative | 12 |
2017 | 317 | 42.4 | 13,636,684 | Conservative | Minority |
2019 | 365 | 43.6 | 13,966,565 | Conservative | 80 |