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Election 83 - BBC Parliament
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Just a quick reminder that tomorrow (Friday) from 9 a.m. the election night programme from 1983 is on BBC Parliament. David Dimbleby is in the hot seat for the second time and Peter Snow makes his general election debut at the results board following the death of Robert McKenzie a couple of years earlier. Also featured, John Cole, the BBC's Political Editor at the time, analyst Tony King and Robin Day doing the interviews.
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(Sorry, but I just love my political nostalgia!)
I would love to see the 1997, I was out of the country and they messed up my absentee voting. I come back and a new party is in office...weird!
A Mrs Thatchers great triumph and a reminder to those on the left (who like to forget) that she was incredibly popular once.
All popular PMs fall foul of the electorate eventually, Churchill did, Wilson did, Thatcher did and now so has Blair.
In fact IIRC Labour under Blair have never scored as many votes as her at any General Election or Major for that matter.
Roll on 1992, billed as Labour's last chance (they blew it), everyone was left wondering if Labour could ever win again...
1997 was fantastic - watching all the Tory big nobs fall. Portillo was a particular favourite!
It's interesting that Thatcher was not felled in an election. Instead she passed the torch on to another who lost (well, won one and then lost). I wonder if the same will be true of the Blair handover to Brown (or whoever)?
Almost inevitably. No party is going to stay in power forever, and it would be unhealthy if it did.
I find it fascinating to look at the parallels between the leaders during both both parties' long period in opposition. First, Michael Foot for Labour and William Hague for the Tories. Very different in age but both highly respected parliamentarians who simply weren't seen as serious PM material by the electorate. Then we had Neil Kinnock and Iain Duncan Smith, both of whom were completely ineffective against Thatcher and Blair and once again weren't seen as potential PMs. Of-course IDS never got the chance to test this but I think it's pretty obvious what the result would have been. Thern we moved on to two more senior figures from the respective parties - John Smith and Michael Howard, who both had greater gravitas and were probably seen as a steadying hand after the internal turmoil of what had gone before. Smith might have won an electon but tragically never got the chance, so then we had Tony Blair for Labour and David Cameron for the Tories, and many people have observed the similarities here. I suspect the outcome is going to be much the same, but can Gordon Brown (or whoever) do a John Major, and win one last election for Labour first?
It's been done already.
G
Peter Snow seems so laid back compared to his later performances, almost as if he's on tranquilisers! He must be one of those people who has become more energetic rather than less so with increasing age!
One reason- she was a woman. Even my mum admits she voted Tory for the only time in her life solely for that reason.
..not to mention Valerie Singleton who has never quite managed to lose the Blue Peter association even though she did quite a lot of current affairs in the 1970s and 1980s, reporting on on Nationwide and presenting The Money Programme on BBC2 and Radio 4's PM.
Thanks for reminding me. It's weird that it was broadcast from Television Centre's largest studio and yet it looks quite cramped.
It shows that all parties have their disasters at a general election. Watch the reports here Labour are being written off in fact I heard someone ask if it was the end of the party, it took a while but they came back!
I cant wait for the next election (sad I know) it's going to be one of those watch them fall elections I think
Foot just doesn't look like a PM!! 1983 is proof that no matter how big the defeat the big 2 always come back in the end. Labour came back from 1983, the Tories are now on the way back from 1997 just as they came back from the defeat of 1945.
What is really amazing though is all that blue in Eastern Scotland so easy to forget this whole area, Edinburgh, Lothian,Tayside, Angus Aberdeenshire, Moray was once rock solid Tory country. :eek:
Next election, hung parliamnet and we'll all be back at the polls within a year. Even if not a single seat changes hands on the night Labour will still end up with a single figure majority as the Boundry Commision will hand 20-30 seats to the Conservatives to make up for Labour's current over representation.
2005 may well be the last "big majority" election for some time to come.
Yes Foot didnt have a TV, how did he get the job??
"I'm not saying were going to have 20 years of Conservative Govenrment..." no John it was 18, close enough though. :cool: