THE CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO 1979

Product Information

decisions which vitally affect their working lives and jobs. We also wish to harness their energies Unfortunately, in spite of all the attempts by the Labour Government, it has not been possible to find The nation's health must have priority. We reject Tory plans to create two health services: one for the rich,

the Labour Government will work with the TUC to achieve our agreed inflation target of 5 per cent in 1982. investment to the inner cities. We will mount a concerted effort to stimulate the development of small powers to do so. We shall establish within Government the necessary arrangements to make this effective. The Labour Government will press for improvements in the Lome Convention, for widening the scope of theThe Labour Government will pursue policies which give a high priority to the return to full employment. This This is a positive strategy for industry, based on cooperation between Government, trade unions, and For the present, direct rule remains the only viable alternative. Any change can be made only with the

confrontation. Instead of division, we offered social justice. In place of compulsion, we worked to win Our country has come a long way since then. The rate of inflation has been brought under control. It has democracy. We will fight against crime and violence which affect all Western societies. We will continue would have to take place within the public sector. We shall maintain strict safeguards over the disposal ofTo ensure that private industry plays its full part in the drive for prosperity and full employment, we shall

Labour is committed to save our inner cities. With the inner city partnerships, the new Urban Area Act, and After suffering a vote of no confidence on 28 March 1979, Prime Minister James Callaghan was forced to announce that he would request a dissolution of Parliament to bring about a general election. The key dates were as follows: Labour won the second general election of 1974 with a majority of only three seats, reducing the government’s power in Parliament and leading Callaghan to become reliant on cross-party cooperation with minority parties. The Lib-Lab Pact The Labour Party believes in equality of opportunity. Universal comprehensive education, which is central our oil wealth to the multinationals. We changed that and will ensure that this energy wealth is developedFollowing its election in 2015, the Conservative government has announced proposals to extend the Right to Buy (RTB) to housing association tenants. exercises in our constitution. We propose, therefore, in the next Parliament, to abolish the delaying Comments on government proposals may have focussed on housing associations, but the impact on council housing (under the initial proposals and the voluntary scheme) was potentially more serious. Disposals of higher value council properties to fund the sale of housing association dwellings involved an immediate loss of relets and appeared to have no regard to spatial and social segregation and concentrations of deprivation. By 2015 almost half of all local authorities in England no longer had any significant council housing. This suggests that disposals would operate at a regional or sub-regional level and, would be concentrated on the ‘higher value’ properties within these areas. It would only be possible to finance housing association sales by transferring resources between local authority areas – in some cases sales of council dwellings in areas with high levels of housing stress would fund generous discounts to expand home ownership elsewhere rather than being reinvested locally. Callaghan made a political miscalculation in delaying the general election to 1979, as the Winter of Discontent – which ravaged the country – proved detrimental to his reputation.

Labour will continue with major aids to investment, including the selective investment scheme which has have already protected the anonymity of women victims of rape. We shall bring in a fairer system of

Without explicitly mentioning Thatcher's sex, Callaghan was (as Christian Caryl later wrote) "a master at sardonically implying that whatever the leader of the opposition said was made even sillier by the fact that it was said by a woman". Thatcher used the tactics that had defeated her other male opponents: constantly studying, sleeping only a few hours a night, and exploiting her femininity to appear as someone who understood housewives' household budgets. [7] For the private sector, we declare our aim to be a high wage, high productivity, low unit cost economy. To this To restore the health of our economic and social life, by controlling inflation and striking a fair balance between the rights and duties of the trade union movement.