Comment on That British Labour Party 1983 Election Manifesto by richotto

My recollection is that the manifesto committments in themselves did’nt cause Labour to perform disasterously in the 1983 General Election, (Con 43%, Lab 27%, SDP/Lib Alliance 25%). In the first week of campaigning Labour were quick out of the traps with the manifesto and gained about 3% in the opinion polls to about 7% behind the Tories WITH SDP/Liberals slipping back. Michael Foot was coming across surprisingly well showing him in the opinion of one commentator to be most peoples idea of a nice peacetime prime minister as opposed to Mrs Thatchers wartime persona.
The problem arose in the second week when Denis Healy who was in a ridiculous position of shadow defence spokesman openly broke with the manifesto policy on neuclear deterrence which was dubbed in the media as “unilateralism”, that is doing away with the UK reliance on neuclear defence without a corresponding agreement from the Soviet side. This major split was reinforced by a speech from former prime minister James Callaghan also ridiculing Labours policy on defence. The whole focus of the campaign was switched immediately to defence policy and the row between Labours right and left with the media slaughtering the unilateralist message almost as treasonable. It stayed that way for the rest of the campaign and domestic issues were incredibly ignored almost completely. SDP/LIBS were the major beneficiaries altough in seats they ended up with only 26 as opposed to 208 for Labour. SDP ended up with only six of those making their future as an independant entity suddenly very much in question.