I don't share Nick Clegg's policies and doubt I could pick out his picture but I agree that the Thatcher years were socially divisive and created more problems than they solved.

 

I have always believed that she would have been defeated at the General Election in 1983 without the Falklands War. Instead she got a huge majority which enabled her to go against the collective will of the people here in Scotland, who whittled back the Tory representation to next to nothing. Thatcher did more to bring about Devolution than any of the parties who supported the idea.

I still don't think a war makes any real difference

 

Did Churchill win election after WW2 and his brilliance during that ? no, he got defeated at the very next election

 

Did Gulf War 1 benefit Major ? he won the election after by the skin of his teeth

 

Did Gulf War 2 benefit B-liar ? no, his majority was more than halved in the following election

 

War undoubtedly breeds patriotism and nationalism but it makes very little real difference in elections, people vote with their wallets in elections

I still don't think a war makes any real difference

 

I disagree. It can make all the difference depending upon the context.

 

Did Churchill win election after WW2 and his brilliance during that ? no, he got defeated at the very next election

 

For starters Churchill was not elected Prime Minister before the start of the war. It was the first general election to be held since 1935, as general elections had been suspended until the Allied victory in the Second World War had been assured.

 

Churchill and the Conservatives are also generally considered to have run a poor campaign in comparison to Labour; Churchill's statement that Attlee's programme would require a Gestapo-esque body to implement is considered to have been particularly poorly judged. Equally, whilst voters respected and liked Churchill's wartime record, they were more distrustful of the Conservative Party's domestic and foreign policy record in the late thirties. Labour had also been given, during the war, the opportunity to display to the electorate their domestic competence in government under men such as Attlee, Herbert Morrison and Ernest Bevin at the Ministry of Labour.

 

The Labour Party ran on promises to create full employment, a tax funded universal National Health Service, and a cradle-to-grave welfare state, with the campaign message 'Let us face the future.'

 

Did Gulf War 1 benefit Major ? he won the election after by the skin of his teeth

 

John Major had won the leadership election in November 1990 succeeding the outgoing PM Margaret Thatcher whose Conservative party were trailing Labour by 9 - 12% points at the time (Oct/Nov 90) thanks to the likes of the Poll Tax. During his term leading up to the 1992 elections he oversaw the British involvement in the Gulf War, introduced legislation to replace the unpopular Community Charge with Council Tax, and signed the Maastricht treaty. The UK had slid into recession in the early 1990s along with most of the other industrialised nations. Whilst the Tories only lost 0.3% of their vote. The big difference at the election came from the Labour gaining 2.6% of their 2.9% increase of voters from the floundering Liberal Democrats. Whilst the first Gulf War had an approval rating of just 55% v 45% of the electorate so it was not exactly a vote winner.

 

So under those circumstances (remember Neil Kinnock's "Oh Yeah; Alright" Labour rally because they thought they had the victory in the bag) John Major did a damn good job of winning the election.

 

Did Gulf War 2 benefit B-liar ? no, his majority was more than halved in the following election

 

Oh come on, you are taking the :P ? The Gulf War 2 was his undoing as much as the Poll Tax was Margaret Thatcher's. Had the second Gulf War not occurred than Labour would have won the last election with a far greater margin.

 

War undoubtedly breeds patriotism and nationalism but it makes very little real difference in elections, people vote with their wallets in elections

 

Historically, the Falklands War made a huge difference to the Conservatives. Thatcher had been extremely unpopular during her first two years in office until the swift and decisive victory in the Falklands War, coupled with an improving economy, considerably raised her standings in the polls.

 

The month before the Falklands War a Mori opinion poll had the following:

 

SDP 29%

Labour 28%

Conservative 21%

Liberal 13%

 

Yet the month after the Falklands War had ended a Mori opion poll was:

 

Conservative 41%

Labour 22%

SDP 19%

Liberal 9%

 

In the end the Conservatives increased the number of seats in Parliament by 58 despite losing 2.5% of their national vote from the 1979 elections due to Labour & the newly formed SDP/Liberal alliance fighting over the same set of disenchanted with Thatcher voters.

I've just read an excellent essay which appeared in the New Statesman a few weeks ago. It's quite long but gives a good summary of how the policies of the last 30 years or so have got us to where we are. You could summarise it as "It's the Tories' fault but it's also Labour's fault for not reversing any of Thatcher's worst policies".

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2009/0...societies-essay