Another major factor, which brought success to both the Conservative Party and to the country as a whole, was the victory in The War in The South Atlantic. In 1982, Britain went to war with Argentina over the control of the Falklands/Malvinas Islands. Many Britons supported the war, as did the EEC- who subsequently put a ban on imports from Argentina and also an embargo on arms and military equipment. “Clearly, the Falklands campaign had worked wonders for Thatcher.” The victorious war campaign led to Thatcher gaining enormous popularity as these figures show: “In January 1982, the polls showed that the SDP/Liberal Alliance were ahead of the other two parties, with Labour second. By March, Labour had a six-point lead. A month later the Conservatives had gained a three-point lead, which increased to 12.5 in May. With the defeat of Argentina in July the Conservatives stood at 46.5%, 19 points ahead of Labour and 22.5 points ahead of the Alliance.” This shows that before the victory in the South Atlantic, the Tories were not doing very well in the polls, however, as a consequence of the victory, Conservative’s had gained much popularity prior to the forthcoming election. Thatcher capitalised on the so-called Falklands spirit. She almost wants to be seen as a Churchill figure recognising herself as a major victor in war times. Thatcher used the battle in the South Atlantic to promote Great Britain’s magnitude.
One of the other factors, which could be said to be a turning point in the election, was the current state of the Labour Party. “The Left, however, were torn.” In 1980, Michael Foot became new leader of the Labour Party. He was a hard-line socialist and left-winger, whose policies were to lead to a massive split in the lefts share of the vote. Opposition to Foot’s socialist Splits within the Labour party led to the formation of the SDP, led by David Owen. In addition, one of the SPD’s key members had formed a pact with the Liberal’s known as the Alliance. The Labour party was in major decline, losing voters to the Alliance and Conservatives. There were many views about why the Labour party was in such disarray. Ivor Crewe wrote:
“Labour lost through the desertion of its working-class men…The main components of the anti-Labour swing were…straight conversion from Labour to Conservative, and movement to and from the Liberals (especially October 1974 Liberals reverting to their original Conservative loyalties)”
The other factor surrounding the Conservative victory and the Labour party demise was their leader Michael Foot. Foot was very much a left-wing socialist. He was very committed to his policies concerning unilateral nuclear disarmament, as well as withdrawal from the EEC, which was considered very un-Labour like, and he also stressed the need for extensive public ownership.
The role of Margaret Thatcher played an important role in the re-election of the Conservatives in 1983. The British people saw her as a Churchill figure- much like she wanted. They saw her as a powerful leader who could take the country through war and come out victorious. By 1983, Thatcher’s main achievements came in the form of the Housing Act 1980, the reform of Trade Union’s, the success fo privatisation of many industries, including British Aerospace and The National Freight Consortium, which were flourishing in the private sector. Inflation had been brought down by 4%, which compared to the 27% when she took over from the Labour party in 1979, is extremely good. Also, there was the battle in the South Atlantic, which brought many successes to the Conservatives and to Thatcher.
The Conservative manifesto in 1983 was much bolder than its 1979 counterpart. It virtually called for more of the same: free market, independence, privatisation, tax cuts, reform of trade Unions and a cutback on the NHS. It called for “a limited number of radical and striking measures, rather than irritating clutches of minor ones.”
On the other hand though, the Labour manifesto, entitled The New Hope For Britain was not portraying the Labour party as good as it probably could have done. “…Presenting themselves as a party at war with themselves, led by an unworldly, ageing idealist. It was too detailed in places, too woolly in others and threatened to disband Britain’s nuclear forces unilaterally and take Britain out of the EEC.” According to Healey “our electoral campaign was the worse organised than any I have known.” This manifesto was seen as a major radical overhaul from the Labour party, as people did not want to see such radical changes after Thatcher’s changes.
The results of the General Election on June 9th 1983 show that the Conservative’s had a huge majority of the vote. As you can see from the graph, the Conservatives achieved largest landslide victory in post-war Britain with 397 seats, the Labour Party with 209 seats and the Alliance with 23 seats.
