Related Research Articles
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx was a British statesman and politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 1963 to 1976, Leader of the Opposition twice from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1970 to 1974, and a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1983. Wilson is the only Labour leader to have formed administrations following four general elections.
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, commonly known as Jim Callaghan, was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Callaghan is the only person to have held all four Great Offices of State, having also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967, Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970 and Foreign Secretary from 1974 to 1976. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1987.
The 1926 General Strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reductions and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners. Some 1.7 million workers went out, especially in transport and heavy industry.
The 1979 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the House of Commons. The election was held following the defeat of the Labour government in a no-confidence motion on 28 March 1979, six months before the Parliament was due for dissolution in October 1979.
The Winter of Discontent was the period between November 1978 and February 1979 in the United Kingdom characterised by widespread strikes by private, and later public, sector trade unions demanding pay rises greater than the limits Prime Minister James Callaghan and his Labour Party government had been imposing, against Trades Union Congress (TUC) opposition, to control inflation. Some of these industrial disputes caused great public inconvenience, exacerbated by the coldest winter in 16 years, in which severe storms isolated many remote areas of the country.
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman.
The February 1974 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 28 February 1974. The Labour Party, led by Leader of the Opposition and former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, gained 14 seats but was seventeen short of an overall majority. The Conservative Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Edward Heath, lost 28 seats. That resulted in a hung parliament, the first since 1929. Heath sought a coalition with the Liberals, but the two parties failed to come to an agreement and so Wilson became prime minister for a second time, his first with a minority government. Wilson called another early election in September, which was held in October and resulted in a Labour majority. The February election was also the first general election to be held with the United Kingdom as a member state of the European Communities (EC), which was widely known as the "Common Market".
The 1964 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 15 October 1964. It resulted in the Conservatives, led by incumbent Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home, narrowly losing to the Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson; Labour secured a parliamentary majority of four seats and ended its thirteen years in opposition since the 1951 election. Wilson became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Rosebery in 1894.
Incomes policies in economics are economy-wide wage and price controls, most commonly instituted as a response to inflation, and usually seeking to establish wages and prices below free market level.
The Three-Day Week was one of several measures introduced in the United Kingdom in 1973–1974 by Edward Heath's Conservative government to conserve electricity, the generation of which was severely restricted owing to industrial action by coal miners and railway workers.
The term 'Selsdon Man' was coined by Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson to describe the free-market economic policy of his principal rival, Conservative leader Edward Heath. The term 'Selsdon Man' was intended as a derogatory reference to the historic 'Piltdown Man', the supposed remains of an early human.
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales in 1888. The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' unions in England, Scotland and Wales whose associations remained largely autonomous. At its peak, the federation represented nearly one million workers. It was reorganised into the National Union of Mineworkers in 1945.
The Labour Party governed the United Kingdom from 1974 to 1979. During this period, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan were successively appointed as Prime Minister by Queen Elizabeth II. The end of the Callaghan ministry was presaged by the Winter of Discontent, a period of serious industrial discontent. This was followed by the election of Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
The British Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement of the late 19th century and surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives in the early 1920s. In the 1930s and 1940s, it stressed national planning, using nationalisation of industry as a tool, in line with Clause IV of the original constitution of the Labour Party which called for the "common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service".
The 1973–1975 recession or 1970s recession was a period of economic stagnation in much of the Western world during the 1970s, putting an end to the overall post–World War II economic expansion. It differed from many previous recessions by involving stagflation, in which high unemployment and high inflation existed simultaneously.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions that collectively represent most unionised workers in England and Wales. There are 48 affiliated unions with a total of about 5.5 million members. Paul Nowak is the TUC's current General Secretary, serving from January 2023.
Hugh Armstrong Clegg was a British academic who was a founder of the "National Board for Prices and Incomes" (1965–71) and later presided over the "Standing Commission on Pay Comparability" set up by James Callaghan in 1979.
The 1976 sterling crisis was a currency crisis in the United Kingdom. Inflation, a balance-of-payments deficit, a public-spending deficit, and the 1973 oil crisis were contributors.
The History of trade unions in the United Kingdom covers British trade union organisation, activity, ideas, politics, and impact, from the early 19th century to the recent past. For current status see Trade unions in the United Kingdom.
When Britain emerged victorious from the Second World War, the Labour Party under Clement Attlee came to power and created a comprehensive welfare state, with the establishment of the National Health Service giving free healthcare to all British citizens, and other reforms to benefits. The Bank of England, railways, heavy industry, and coal mining were all nationalised. Unlike the others, the most controversial issue was nationalisation of steel, which was profitable. Economic recovery was slow, housing was in short supply, and bread was rationed along with many necessities in short supply. It was an "age of austerity". American loans and Marshall Plan grants kept the economy afloat. India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon gained independence. Britain was a strong anti-Soviet factor in the Cold War and helped found NATO in 1949. Many historians describe this era as the "post-war consensus", emphasising how both the Labour and Conservative Parties until the 1970s tolerated or encouraged nationalisation, strong trade unions, heavy regulation, high taxes, and generous welfare state.
References
- 1 2 3 4 Thorpe, Andrew (2001). A History of The British Labour Party. Palgrave. pp. 166–188. ISBN 0-333-92908-X.
- 1 2 Conroy, Harry (2006). Callaghan (The 20 British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century). London: Haus Publishing. p. 93. ISBN 978-1-904950-70-7.
- ↑ Sloman, Pater. "Harold Wilson, 'Selsdon Man', and the defence of social democracy in 1970s Britain". Oxford Academic. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- The Miners Strike and the Social Contract, The National Archives
- 1974–1979 – The Social Contract, London Metropolitan University, 2012
- Thorpe, Andrew (2008). The Labour Party and the Trade Unions (PDF) (Report). University of Exeter. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
 | This article related to the politics of the United Kingdom, or its predecessor or constituent states, is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |