Miners almost saved Edward Heath’s Conservative government

Incumbent British Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath addresses the nation in a party political broadcast on the eve of the general election in 1974. Photograph: Frank Tewkesbury/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Michael Bloch (Straight-talking, Review, 16 May) says the Heath government was “brought down by union militancy”. But Heath’s government was failing, almost from day one, when it failed to bring down inflation, reaching 15%-20% in the early 70s. Rather than the usual Conservative remedy of inducing a depression to push down on wages and prices, he tried the then new conventional wisdom of direct legislation to make inflationary wage and price rises a crime. When Joe Gormley’s National Union of Mineworkers went on strike to demand a pay rise above the lawful maximum, the public blamed the miners and Heath’s popularity rose, above Labour’s for the first time. Heath attempted to take advantage of that, three and a half years into the parliament, by calling a snap election. The miners’ strike gave him his one chance of re-election, and the Tories won the most votes (just not as many seats as Labour) so, in a way, the gamble paid off, but not enough. Far from bringing down the Heath government, union militancy only just failed to save it.
Richard Fife
Nottingham