The 1983 Election

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  • The 1983 Election
    • why did Lab. lose so heavily?
      • the 1983 manifesto was very left-wing
        • it was dubbed the 'longest suicide note in history'
      • it included nuclear disarmament,nationalising the banks (no private enterprise) withdrawal from Europe
      • more popular elements, however, were a ban on fox-hunting & national minimum wage
      • many anti-thatcher voters switched their vote to the Lib / SDP
    • the 1983 election was Lab's worst performance since the war
    • they were almost beaten into third place by the Liberal / SDP alliance
    • Lab. polled 28% & Lib/SDP polled 25%
    • Cons. polled just 42% (down 2% from 1979) but won a massive landslide
    • therefore, Thatcher was not massively popular but the SDP split the anti-Thatcher vote
    • the SDP probably did more than the Falklands War to help Thacther win the 1983
    • in 1983 Thatcher actually won fewer votes nationally than she did in 1979, suggesting her popularity had gone down despite the Falklands War
    • however,  as the SDP took several million votes away from Lab. this helped Thatcher & the Cons. to win the win election by a. bigger majority
    • had Lab. presented a more moderate manifesto then the SDP would have won fewer votes & Thatcher may only have won a small minority

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