On this day in 1974 Ted Heath called a snap election

Fascinating historical post by Alistair Cooke over on the official Conservative Party blog remembering Britain's economic troubles of the 1970s:

"To conserve vital stocks, Ted Heath's Government put industry on a three-day week from 1 January 1974. There was no legislation: industry simply did as it was told in that very different period in our history. Under the Government's restrictions, a 50 m.p.h.speed limit was imposed on motorists. Television closed down at 10.30 p.m. A junior minister (subsequently a member of Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet) earned instant notoriety by advising people to clean their teeth in the dark."

I love the cleaning the teeth in the dark story.

Read the whole thing here.  There's good stuff on The Blue Blog most days now.  That wasn't true when it launched.  Definitely worth adding to your favourites.

Tim Montgomerie

Comments

[Stop_Common_Purpose]

Heath was a crook who conned people into signing up for the Common Market when he knew full well what it would turn into - the EU.

[Gordon Brown spent my pension.]

I remember being an articled clerk on a three day week.My son a trainee accountant has now had to sign up for a 4 day week .
Is Brown Labour's Ted Heath?
Traitor and failure.Nasty too!

[Jack Stone]

I suppose this thread will turn into a we hate Heath rant by many.
Ted Heath saw the horrors of war and that is what shaped his views on a united europe. Disagree with it many might but lets show a bit of respect for someone who fought for his country and basically did what he believed to be right.

[Bill]

Met him as a schoolboy during the election campaign. Too young to understand at the time that he was a poor PM and that the Common Market was to be bad news for the UK.

[Bill]

Re "Ted Heath saw the horrors of war and that is what shaped his views on a united europe." I see. So he looked at the evidence and drew the wrong conclusions.

[RichardJ]

If the government tried to impose those sorts of restrictions nowadays there'd be mass civil disobedience.

[Mavies Millicent @52]

I was only a child when Ted was PM, so my memories of him are rather less than objective. I did feel at the time that the unions were being very unfair to him. It was during this formative stage that my distrust of unions started. I liked him because he seemed Jolly and he liked sailing, which I was also keen on. Of course I didn't understand what joining the Common Market would mean. I knew we were in a lot of trouble and my Dad was very worried about money at the time. I recall the power cuts, but my Bedtime was 8.00 O'clock so I do not recall the TV going off a 10.30. The most impressive thing to me now, is that the nation did what it was told. Although there was grumbling most people knew that things had been worse when they were younger. Things did get better and relatively quickly but it was a frightening time to be young.
I suspect that the worst of our latest woes are still ahead of us. We it seems have come full circle. At least Ted had the guts to call a snap election I cannot see Gordon Brown being as brave, and I suspect that today's children will not have the fond memories of him that I have of Ted Heath.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Remember it well. Even though I was only 12 I became very interested in the campaign. Even though my family seriously disliked Wilson the general consensus at home was that the Conservative campaign was very weak. Enoch Powell's intervention did not help either.

[Tanuki]

I remember those days... being turned out of sixth-form and sent home because the school had no heating or lighting!

It could have been worse - at least we were spared the horrors remembered from Harold Wilson's 1967 devaluation - in particular Bruce Forsyth's execrable "I'm backing Britain" campaign song.
I'm still amused at that - how the campaign fell apart promptly when it was discovered that the union-jack T-shirts promoted by the campaign were actually made in Portugal because the UK factory originally contracted to do the printing had gone on strike!

[bobchilts]

Ted Heath was a man out of his time - a truly visionary Conservative who realised that Britain could ill afford to go into the 21st century standing coldly aloof from it's European neighbours.

He wasn't to know that the EU would turn into the monstrous beureaucratic nightmare it is today. The next Conservative government must demand the EU reform itself on more democratic and egalitarian lines, and ensure Britain gets a much better deal from membership than it currently has.

But taking us out of it altogether would be a ridiculously retrograde step, and I am grateful that we had a Prime Minister like Heath who had the forsight to take us into a union of trust and co-operation that does still have unnumerable benefits, despite the attempts of the rabid euro-bashers to convince us that it doesn't.

And yes, i am a Tory.

[Matthew Reynolds]

Sir Edward Heath did indeed serve in WW2 and saw the bloodshed and destruction caused by a divided Europe. The whole federalist thing was a reaction to that as people did not want the nation-state inspired wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45 to happen again. I know that the EU is a red tape producing pain in the neck that has not its accounts signed off for thirteen years or so while ending the £ will destroy our democracy - but in the 1970's who could have foreseen that ? While we all deplore the damage done for farming & fisheries not to mention restrictive employment laws let us be fair to Sir Ted's memory and remember that while he drew the wrong conclusions from WW2 ( that sovereign nations could not work together in peace ) you have to respect our one time Leader's motives. He never wanted people to die in a Pan-European conflict again - those are motives I admire.

Much of the abuse thrown at Sir Edward Heath is unfair and surely it might be better to articulate a positive view of regaining our freedoms from Brussels rather than denigrating a war hero who is not around to defend himself ? Where it not for brave men like him we might not be exchanging views like this via the internet.

What price civility.....

[Graeme Archer]

Though I was only 4 at the time, some of his government has had lasting impact... I like folk music, because when the lights went off, mum and dad used to play guitar and sing songs by candlelight. And I still brush my teeth in the dark (to avoid seeing my face in the mirror).

[cosmic]

To be fair to Heath the country looked ungovernable and skint at the time and presumably there wasn't much option in his eyes but to throw in our lot with 'Europe' and let them sort it out. No doubt there was lying and finessing and the full consequences as pointed out by Powell and Benn were something to evade, but that was for someone later to deal with.

An old-fashioned Tory who couldn't reverse the ratchet of socialism, partly because he thought along those lines himself. He saw it as the best way to manage decline and ho doubt there was a definite amount of self-interest.

He was no Thatcher, and she wasn't a Tory, she was a 19th century liberal.

[The Bishop Swine]

"He was no Thatcher, and she wasn't a Tory, she was a 19th century liberal." That's an interesting viewpoint. She certainly seemed to favour Laissez-faire economics. I recall a rather crude explanation of the trickle down theory using champagne glasses, but I do not recall who did the demonstration anyone got a better recollection than me?
Possible a party political braodcast, its one of those things that is burned into my memory.

[Richard ROBINSON]

The Government (not, I think, Patrick Jenkin this time) also advised us to share a bath!

[Steve Foley]

I remember it well! We all thought we would win on a "Doctor's Mandate". Instead as the first results came in it was obvious it had all gone wrong.

Still, Heath did go and we got Margaret Thatcher in his place in 1975.

Heath was not someone I warmed to. History will judge him in say 50 years from now. I feel he sold Britain for a mess of pottage.

[Steve Foley]

"... show a bit of respect for someone who fought for his country"

Yes indeed he did Jack Stone, ended up a Half Colonel as I recall. Enoch Powell rose from the ranks to Brigadier and gave up a good career as Professor of Greek at an Australian University to fight for his country. Do you also respect HIM Jack?

[Yet Another Anon]

Heath was a crook who conned people into signing up for the Common Market when he knew full well what it would turn into - the EU.
Not even as good as that, he conned parliament into signing up to it, and if it had been left to him there wouldn't even have been a referendum on it, he was so fanatical about the European project that he would have done anything to get the UK into the EU, and unfortunately with Labour shifting it's position the Brussels Gravy Train chugged out of the station and ever since has run down anyone who tries to question it in any way.

[TomTom]

Ted Heath saw the horrors of war and that is what shaped his views on a united europe

He was not alone in seeing the horrors of war, but he did give away British fishing rights and national sovereignty in a way Winston Churchill - who had also seen horrors of war - refused to in May 1940 when fellow Conservatives like Lord Halifax and R A B Butler wanted him to.

Fighting in a war does not qualify anyone to make disastrous decisions -

[The Bishops Wife]

"Fighting in a war does not qualify anyone to make disastrous decisions"

Indeed, Hitler was famously "a front line soldier", who wanted to "unify" Europe. Of course nobody in their right minds wants another European world war, but throwing away our National Sovernity, isn't the answer. I imagine there are a lot of our valiant soldiers turning in their graves over this issue.

[Oggy]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN

[Jack Stone]

Steve Foley. Powell was a racist. I do not respect racists simple as that.

[Steve Foley]

Jack Stone, I do not respect you, simple as that!

[Jack Stone]

Steve Foley but you seem to respect racists!!

[The Bishop's Wife.]

"Steve Foley but you seem to respect racists!!"

Powell was a realist in an age before the PC straitjacket was forced on us. His predictions may still be proven true, if the BNP gets any bigger. As it is many people admired Powell and for good reason he was a conviction politician. There were way to few Enoch Powell's about then, and there are even fewer now. He was absolutely not a racist.

[Super Blue]

The Left is fond of throwing the word "racist" about whenever it loses the argument - and Jock Stale is further evidence of this. I would recommend that he reads more about Powell's life and career - "veal escalope" * wrote a good biography twenty years ago.

[Jack Stone]

Super Bore. Anyone who as red Powells Rivers of blood speech can`t fall to come to the conclussion that Powell was a racist.
He believed in a white Britain and didn`t want as he put it the black man becoming too powerful.
The man was an out and out racist but I am not surprised that many in the party share his beliefs.

[John Anslow]

Following the beating to death in March 1959 of eleven Mau Mau terrorists by warders in Hola prison camp, Powell made what Dennis Healey later described as “the greatest parliamentary speech I ever heard.” Here is part of the peroration.

Nor can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall use this or that kind of standard. We cannot say, “We will have African standards in Africa, Asian standards in Asia, and perhaps British standards here at home.” We must be consistent with ourselves everywhere.

Powell would, I imagine, have said something similar about the practice of extraordinary rendition.

Whatever else Powell might have been, and he was a deeply complex man, he was certainly no racist.

[Super Blue]

Draper-Stone,

Read John Anslow's reply and, for goodness sake, LEARN TO SPELL!!!!!
"... red his ........ speech" - spilt red ink or cranberry juice over it?
"Conclussion" - what one decides if one is concussed?

[marian]

Super Blue why do you whine on endlessly about spelling and neglect grammatical conventions yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!!! good god man exclamation marks don't grow on trees or at least they should not.

[Super Blue]

Marian,

I have noticed that "dry" remarks are often misunderstood so additional punctuation is sometimes added for this reason.

PS Your views on the subject are ........?