1974 was the year of two general elections. The first, in February, gave Britain its first hung parliament since 1929. It was the closest of results. Whilst the Conservatives won the popular vote by a mere 193,000, but Labour had four more seats: 301 to 297.
It was not meant to be so. In 1970, Harold Wilson had expected to win, only to see a late surge of support see Ted Heath’s Conservatives win a majority of 31. Faced with an imminent second miners’ strike in three days time, Heath called a snap election on February 7th for three weeks hence, the minimum length of campaign possible. Famously, Heath posed the question ‘who governs Britain?’ perhaps thinking of the violence and upheavals associated with the miners’ strike of 1972. As it was, the miners were, in Jim Prior’s words, ‘as quiet as mice’. Thus, it was the economy that…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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