He was able to successfully deflect the image of being "unflappable" against Gaitskell, in which he calmly mocked his policies in the run-up to the 1959 General Election. In addition, we can see that despite the opinion polls favouring Gaitskell over the previous Prime Minister, Eden, which had fallen over the mishandling of the Suez Crisis, Macmillan turned the image around for the Conservatives with the aforementioned qualities as media manipulation, which proved his success leading up to the 1959 General Election as he eventually won by a 100 seat majority. However, Macmillan could also be seen as an
Slightly less dramatically, Tony Blair faced a large rebellion in September 2006 led by ministers such as Tom Watson that forced him to promise to step down after a year had passed. Therefore party pressure has been able to bring down the most able Prime Ministers of recent years, however in both cases the parties only acted because the Prime Minister was increasingly unpopular and were therefore damaging their election prospects. However this was not the case with Gordon Brown in the 2010 general election campaign when after he spoke to a voter in he was still wearing a broadcast microphone and was heard to say "that was a disaster" and when asked what she said, he replied: "Ugh everything! She's just a sort of bigoted woman." This along with his almost comically poor television persona lead to Brown becoming unpopular, yet still he
By finally giving in and devaluing the pound, Labours coherent reputation and authority was damaged. The whole issue surrounding the devaluation of the pound weakened the Labour party further by causing divides within. This weakening contributed to the election defeat in 1970. Furthermore Source 2 however does show direct evidence why labour had lost the election as it states “began for me as badly as it could of done” this tells us that the day had gone badly Roy Jenkins had done a relatively okay interview which didn’t relatively well amongst the public. However in the afternoon it became apparent that the export figures were down £45 million.
To What Extent Does the 'Falklands Factor' Account for Thatcher's Election Victory in 1983? Introduction There were many factors in Thatcher’s election victory over Labour’s Michael Foot, one of which was the British military victory in the Falklands Islands in 1982. This boosted the country’s morale and showed what Thatcher could do for Britain. Other factors were her Economic and Social factors, the Labour weaknesses and the Social Democrat Party. The Falkands Factor ●Thatcher's popularity rose to 52% ● Similar to Churchill when WW2 win boosted morale ● Showed off Thatcher's leadership skills ● Restored public's faith in her Freddie Holley In conclusion the main factor in Thatcher’s 1983 victory was the ‘Falklands factor’ as it boosted her popularity which would have eventually got her more votes in the election.
Hitler would tell the country what they wanted to hear, one example was providing jobs as unemployment increased massively. He also became more popular after he led the campaign against the Young Plan; this reduced the reparations that they had to pay in 1929. All the actions that Hitler made boosted the electoral support for the Nazi party. To an even larger extent than the popularity of Hitler himself came the great depression in 1929 as a result of the Wall Street crash in the USA. The Nazi party took advantage of this in Germany, as the Weimar government weakened the Nazi party rose.
“Welfare policy successfully weathered an economic hurricane in the mid 1970’s and an ideological blizzard in the 1980’s” (Le Grand, 1990, p350) The above quote was in reference to the robustness of the British Welfare state according to Julian Le Grand (in Barr et al, 1990, p350). During the 1970’s Britain faced one of its worst economic crisis; in which he says that the welfare state in Britain had survived even though there was little money to do so. During the 1980’s there were welfare reforms imposed by Margaret Thatcher and her conservative government which was seen as the end of the welfare state by the selling of many Government run industries as part of a way to extend the private market space (Frogget, 2002, p80). The question is though, has the welfare state really survived this hectic period in history? If so, did it do this by learning from the mistakes
Most people say that you either loved or hated Margaret Thatcher. But the truth is that you could feel both ways about her and often at the same time. Margaret Thatcher was a stateswoman in the fullest sense of the word. She ended socialism in Britain and revived the British economy. She even won the Falklands war and radically changed British society.
‘The Sun wot won it’ is a notorious headline that appeared in the newspaper just after the results of the election. This headline shows a huge media influence which even the media agreed with. In the 1997 general election the Sun opted for Tony Blair’s Labour party who went on to win the election. More recently, in 2010, The Sun backed the Conservatives who won the general election, but with no enough votes to form a government on their own. This shows obvious links between newspapers and the electorate.
The most important plan made was the Beveridge Report in 1942. This report highlighted the main causes of poverty in Britain as, WANT (poverty), DISEASE (bad health), SQUALOR (bad housing), IGNORANCE (poor education), and IDLENESS (unemployment). These causes were called ‘the Five Giants.’ In 1951, Labour was criticized for not keeping its promises, and many of their previous voters turned conservative. This caused Labour to lose the 1951 election, as they had focused more on peace throughout the country after the war, than building
But Hitler’s person and political success was the result of desperate industrialists, his excellent handling of the relationship with the army and sheer misfortune. By holding the economic crisis of 1929 and the hyperinflation of the early 1920s responsible for undermining the German people’s confidence in moderate political parties, historian Erich Eyck points out a very important correlation. His argument is supported by the fact that the first big electoral win of the Nazi party –gaining 6.5% of the votes in May 1924– was just right after the hyperinflation of the German Paper Mark reaching a peak. Accordingly, in the next 4 –financially peaceful– years their popularity dropped to 3 and even to 2.6%. Such was the case after the 1929 economic crisis, receiving the support of shocking 37.3%, just in the month when the unemployment rate reaches its highest point with 24.6%.