UK General Election 1984

[Deleted]

Suppose the Falklands War never happened...

SDP maintains its poll lead of December 1981.

The party wins the by-elections in Mitcham & Morden; Birmingham, Northfield and Darlington.

What would have happened in a 1984 election?

[Deleted]

Go back to your constitencies and prepare for government

[The Bishop]

There were signs the Alliance tidal wave was starting to slacken off even before the Falklands war (though yes, that did have a massive and long lasting effect)

And as anybody who recalls it will tell you, they might still have won the Darlington by-election with a better candidate

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Sept 18, 2017 10:57:36 GMT @trident said:

Sept 18, 2017 10:17:09 GMT The Bishop said:

There were signs the Alliance tidal wave was starting to slacken off even before the Falklands war (though yes, that did have a massive and long lasting effect)

And as anybody who recalls it will tell you, they might still have won the Darlington by-election with a better candidate

Those were the days - when by-election candidates had to do daily press conferences with the national media!

The byelection daily press conferences still happened well into the 1990s. The Conservatives dropped them first, I think during Littleborough and Saddleworth. In retrospect very odd that they survived so long; obviously parties didn't want to be accused of 'hiding the candidate', but everyone must have got far more negative stories from the press conferences than they were worth.

[johnloony]

The SDP peak in December 1981 started diminishing rapidly during 1982, regardless of the Falklands War happening.
The temporary boost which the Conservative Party got in the opinion polls from the Falklands War had already diminished by 1983.
The Conservative Party recovered in the opinion polls towards 1983 because the parliament was naturally moving towards a general election and away from mid-term.
The Conservative Party got a landslide victory in 1983 because the opposition was split between Labour and Lib/SDP, mainly because the Labour Party was awful under Michael Foot.

The idea that the Conservative Party got a landslide in 1983 "because of" the Falklands War is one of the most pervasive and insidious myths in political history, and is not backed up by the reality.

Therefore my answer to the topic of the thread is that I do not accept the premise of assuming that the SDP surge would have continued in the absence of the Falklands War much beyond what actually happened. No Falklands War would have meant a landslide in 1983 or 1984 similar to what actually happened in 1983.

[mondialito]

Would the Miners Strike have had an impact on a May/June election?

[Davıd Boothroyd]

I doubt the government would have let a miners' strike happen had it been forced to delay the election until 1984. The miners' strike was partly a consequence of the Thatcher government realising that Scargill was serious about calling a nationwide strike and was going to find a way around the failure of the membership to vote for one (as required under NUM rules).