To give one example of the power of the big brigades: the government in office take the eve of the eve of poll for their last political broadcast in the series; the official opposition take theirs the day before that, namely the Monday before polling day; the Liberals are relegated to the previous Saturday – five days before polling day. The pressure on us was tremendous but we still ended up with six million votes.
The miners’ strike 1974
By January 1974 it was clear that the government and the miners were on a collision course. To conserve coal stocks, industry was working on a three-day week and there were power cuts nationwide. The government was insistent that any settlement should be made within the framework of Phase 3 of the government’s anti-inflation policy. The miners took the view that events in the Middle East, with the price of oil soaring, made them a special case in which Phase 3 had become outdated.
The TUC offered not to use the miners’ settlement, when and if achieved, as an excuse for demands for other industries. On 31 January 1974 I asked the Prime Minister in the House of Commons: ‘Does he regard the TUC’s initiative and the Relativities Report on the Pay Board at least as giving some scope for hope? Is not the general acceptance by the government of the Relativities Report at least a recognition by the government that greater flexibility is required under Phase 3?
‘Could the Secretary of State under paragraph 61 regard the case of the miners as one of special national interest for immediate consideration and to be referred to an examining body? Is the Pay Board’s suggestion that the pay code may have to be amended if the recommendations go beyond Phase 3 something the government would accept? Since we are in a situation in which we are heading for a head-on collision, if the miners regard the £44 million as an interim offer awaiting the outcome of the examination, and the government regard it as an immediate settlement under Phase 3, honour could be settled on both sides.’
Mr Heath replied: ‘… when we operated the freeze and then Stage 2, we recognised that anomalies had arisen and asked the Pay Board to report on how this should be dealt with. We immediately accepted the Anomalies Report, and this came into effect with Stage 3. As a result, over 90 per cent of the anomalies have already been peacefully settled and worked out through the Pay Board as a result of the Report. I believe that relativities can be dealt with in exactly the same way … the question of relativities can be dealt with as soon as this machinery is set up. I am right in inviting the TUC and CBI to help us set it up as soon as possible.’
I was convinced that there was scope for compromise that could lead to a settlement. Accordingly, Cyril Smith MP, our industrial spokesman, who knew Joe Gormley, president of the NUM, through his Lancashire and previous Labour connections, arranged a visit to the National Union of Mineworkers’ headquarters on 7 February 1974. Our delegation consisted of Cyril Smith, John Pardoe MP and myself. Joe Gormley and two of his colleagues, Mr McGahey and Mr Daly, represented the union. I suggested that the £44 million on offer should be regarded as an interim settlement, pending examination of the whole pay structure of the miners as a special case. The government should be asked to make it clear that whilst they could not go beyond the £44 million at this stage, the offer should cover the present situation. The existing pay deal was due for renewal by 1 March, by which time the Pay Board should be asked to produce its report.
Although the government could not accept any Pay Board recommendations without seeing them first, nonetheless it should indicate that it would accept any reasonable suggestion, and that in any event £44 million was money on the table which the union was entitled to take up without prejudice to their right to argue their claim for special recognition. In my view, if the union turned down £44 million and therefore turned down further opportunities for negotiations, Mr Heath on that basis could go to a general election and, in my view, be returned with a majority of twenty to thirty MPs. If, on the other hand, the government, having conceded the £44 million, accepted the Pay Board’s recommendations, and on the strength of this made an additional offer, a refusal by the union would strengthen Mr Heath’s position, and in my view he would get back with a majority of nearer fifty.
We had a fruitful hour’s discussion, and whilst Mr Gormley very properly indicated that all decisions on these issues would have to be decided by his executive, he was grateful for our interest. He said that we had raised some valuable points and were clearly working for a constructive compromise.
After leaving the miners, more than ever convinced that there could be a compromise, we contacted Derek Ezra, chairman of the National Coal Board, and raised the issues which had come up at our meeting with the miners. I was delighted to learn that his mind was moving in a direction similar to our own. That morning he had a meeting with Campbell Adamson, Director-General of the CBI, and Len Murray, General Secretary of the TUC, at which they agreed that they ought to see the Prime Minister informally to try to find a solution to the miners’ problem, with a suggested compromise not dissimilar from our own.
We called on Michael Clapham, president of the CBI, with whom we had a constructive session. From his office, I decided to telephone Willie Whitelaw, then Employment Secretary, to tell him what progress we had made. We asked for an urgent meeting. He replied that whilst he had taken careful note of what we said, an announcement had been made minutes before by the Prime Minister on the one o’clock news that the Queen had granted his request for an immediate dissolution of Parliament, so that a general election would be held on Thursday 28 February 1974.
Any further hopes of a settlement, at least before an election, were swept away.
1974 general elections
The Liberals went into the February 1974 general election in good heart. The Liberal Party’s financial crisis was resolved; its policies had been brought up to date at the Southport Assembly in September 1973 and five by-elections had been won. Taking the batch of eight by-elections, our total vote was higher than that of the other two parties.
As I said at that conference:
The electorate are obviously prepared to give us a chance, for which we are grateful; they are anxious to listen to our policies, to which we must respond. We are witnessing nothing less than the renaissance of the Liberal Party. But before I touch on our policies, may I be allowed at the outset to offer to the Conservative and Labour Parties, and for that matter one or two political commentators as well, a few home truths, which I suspect the electorate are more ready to accept than they are.
First, there is no God-given or man-made right for the Conservative and Labour Parties to rule this country for ever – much as they may dislike to hear it.
Second, they most certainly do not between them represent the sum total of human and political wisdom – however surprised they may be to learn that.
Third, in the mind of the electorate they have both failed in office: failed to keep inflation under control; failed to maintain the value of our currency; failed to modernise industrial relations; failed to end class divisions in our society; failed to give Britain the democratic institutions she deserves; failed to stem the growing sense of disillusionment with them and their leaders. Above all, failed to give this country a sense of national purpose. The brutal fact is that the electors are bored to death with both of them. And one final piece of advice: the Tory and Labour Parties won’t dispel this unpopularity by abusing the Liberal Party.
TV press conferences
I went into the February 1974 general election defending a majority of 369. It would have been fatal in my view if I had taken the daily press conference in London, either absenting myself from North Devon for most of the campaign or flying back to North Devon late in the morning, returning to London by car through the night. I therefore decided to explore the possibility of setting up a television land link between my office in Barnstaple and the National Liberal Club in London, where the daily press conferences were held. I was told it was practicable and so I pressed ahead.
I understand that
Conservative Central Office took legal advice as to whether this development infringed the Representation of the People Act and/or whether the cost of transmitting from North Devon should be counted against the constituency expenses. I suspect they received the same advice as I did – namely that provided the background was not recognisable as being any place in particular it was perfectly legitimate.
This new procedure worked like a charm. It had the added advantage that questions had to be asked through the medium of a hand-held mike passed round by the press officer. Therefore we had one question at a time with suitable time given for reply. I think this calmer atmosphere helped us to pitch our campaign more reasonably than the usual dog-fight.
Although I went into the October 1974 election with a majority of 11,000, I repeated the land link to London, which resulted in my having more time to tour round the rest of the country rather than being stuck in London.
The campaigns
The nation was bitterly divided; we were experiencing the miners’ strike, which produced some very ugly incidents, and the three-day week. I was determined to see the Liberal Party acting as the voice of moderation. The pattern of the opinion polls, although differing in their final figures, all showed a steadily increasing volume of support for the party.
I set out in the Daily Mirror on 27 February 1974 why I thought electors should vote Liberal:
Your vote at this election could help make history. The Liberal Party stands poised on the verge of a major breakthrough, and for the first time in fifty years you have the alternative of three parties from which to choose the next government.
The Liberal Party offers you a new choice, because it offers a fresh approach to our problems – and no easy solutions.
A new approach which is not based on any class or sectional interest, and which recognises that if this country is to recover it must first be united.
We must break down the artificial barriers that divide us. We should begin in the factories and offices by ending suspicion between management and workers, giving workers an equal share in the running of their company – including a share in the profits.
We must tackle rising prices, because inflation always hits hardest at the weak and the poor.
To tackle it effectively, we must first introduce greater fairness in our society.
We must have guaranteed minimum earnings for the lowest paid.
We must extend family allowances to the first child and eliminate the means-test society by guaranteeing every family an adequate minimum income through the tax-credit system.
Equally vital, we must protect our pensioners. Pensions should be linked to national average earnings. As earnings rise, so should pensions.
For single persons, the pension should be fixed at one-third of average earnings. For a couple it should be half.
When we have made provision for the most needy, we can reasonably ask some restraint from those who can afford to tighten their belts.
The Liberal policy for prices and incomes is to control both equally. We would act on prices by tackling monopolies and price-fixing to get genuinely competitive prices.
We must decide every year how much as a nation we can afford to pay ourselves and how much we can allow prices to rise. Those that exceed these limits would be taxed.
But our first task must be to unite this country. So before you vote, please consider one point: which party do you think has the best chance of uniting us?
A party which represents big business and gets a large amount of its funds from that source?
A party almost wholly financed by the trade unions?
Or a Liberal Party dependent on no vested interest and therefore free to work for the country as a whole?
This time you must vote Liberal.
The headlines indicated that things were really moving in our favour. The Daily Express on 27 February 1974 carried the banner heading:
‘HERE COMES JEREMY. HAROLD, TED ARE WORRIED’
Again another headline read:
‘SENSATIONAL POLL RESULT. LIBERALS ARE GAINING FAST’
and:
‘TED, JEREMY NECK AND NECK’
Evening Standard.
‘HEATH, WILSON FIGHT TO WIN OVER THE NEW LIBS. THE BATTLE FOR JEREMY’S ARMY’
The Sun, 25 February 1974:
‘THE JEREMY JITTERS’
‘HEATH FEARS HE WON’T GET OUTRIGHT WIN’
‘SUDDENLY LIBERAL LEADER JEREMY THORPE WAS PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE WITH THE TORIES.’
Evening News, 27 February 1974:
‘TED AHEAD’
‘RACE TO LIBS FALTERS’
‘Mr Jeremy Thorpe has achieved a staggering 38% in personal popularity in the London and South-East area which contains many marginal constituencies. National opinion poll in the Evening News today shows the Liberal leader with an impressive lead over his two main opponents as the campaign deadline looms. Mr Heath’s popularity rating in London and the South-East is 24% and Mr Wilson’s 15%.’
In the event, Harold Wilson formed a minority government and it was clear that he would seek to increase his majority, probably by calling a second election at the earliest opportunity. I felt that October was a real possibility and launched our campaign with the hovercraft tours in the summer, to which I refer elsewhere.
The big issue for the Liberal Party that autumn was to establish the party’s position in the event of no party having an absolute majority. At the conference in Brighton on 11 September 1974, I said:
We now face the supreme test of our conviction and courage.
Our unity of purpose and our strength of character will be tested as never before, This time there will be no honeymoon period before the other two parties, hitherto contemptuous of our influence, turn their wrath on us simultaneously. This time the warning lights are already on.
Liberals entered the contest as free agents owing no favours to paymasters and with no pacts or promises hedging their position.
Dealing with the controversial coalition issue, I said:
I do not and never have believed there is under present conditions a sufficient basis of agreement for a Tory–Liberal or Labour–Liberal coalition.
But that does not mean that we have ever suggested that government should be made impossible, nor in such a situation that we would opt out of our parliamentary responsibilities.
If this country was faced with a catastrophic economic crisis, then we would be prepared, for a limited period on an agreed programme, to join an all-party government of national unity. Is it really thought to be in the interest of the nation to say less?
I asked:
Are you going to say: ‘There may be 4,000,000 unemployed, there may be a collapse of the currency, and there may be bankruptcy. We have no responsibility. We wish to play no part in the rescue of the nation, we are pure’? Of course we are not going to opt out of the responsibilities facing this nation.
Liberals offer the electorate a unique combination of reasons for giving the party their support. Only the Liberals can unite the country in a common fight against inflation.
It is only the people of Great Britain who can insist that men and women of common sense, high talent and goodwill should come together to rescue the country from desperate economic peril.
If I am right in thinking that the supreme need is for unity, let me ask any Conservative this question: do they really believe that the return of a Conservative government will gain the support, trust, and enthusiasm of the trade union movement, and has Mr Heath really proved to be the key to industrial peace?
And to any Labour voter: do they in all conscience think that a majority Labour government will engender the confidence and enterprise of industry to invest, to expand and create new jobs? Is Mr Benn really the answer to economic prosperity? Don’t we as a nation need to gain the trust of both?
At the last election, 6,000,000 Liberal voters formed an alliance for unity and struck a mortal blow against a discredited two-party system.
I had some fears that our vote might not hold up as the result of the electoral system, which had disfranchised millions of voters in February. Happily we were within 1 per cent of our previous total. The outcome was just as disappointing as it was in February and followed the same pattern, namely:
February: Conservatives 12 million votes – 300 MPs; Labour 12 million votes – 300 MPs; Liberals 6 million votes – 14 MPs.
October: Conservatives 10.5 million votes – 276 MPs; Labour 11.5 million votes – 319 MPs; Liberals 5.25 million votes – 13 MPs.
The supreme irony is that the Liberals polled, in October 1974, 5,231,477 votes, winning 13 seats. The Liberal Democrats in May 1997 polled 5,243,440 votes and won 46 seats. In almost every Western European democracy a vote of five to six million would have produced a minimum of 100 MPs!
Will we joln a coalition?
In February 1974 the Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, against the background of the miners’ strike and the three-day week, had called a general election on the basis of: ‘Who governs Britain, the miners or the elected government?’ The result of the poll was indecisive: the Conservative Party had a larger number of votes than Labour, whilst the Labour Party had a larger number of MPs than the Conservatives. So much for our electoral system!
In his autobiography, The Course of my Life, Edward Heath says: ‘I tried to contact the Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe, who was in the West Country celebrating his party’s improved showing. On the Saturday afternoon when all the votes had been counted, he turned up at Downing Street for talks.’ This rather bland statement suggests that I was carrying out a sort of cold canvass of Downing Street looking for work!
In My Own Time Page 12