Word: britain
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...motion put before Parliament by the Tories was simple and straightforward: 'That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's government." By a margin of a single vote, the Commons agreed. Thus last week, in one of the most dramatic episodes in Britain's recent political history, the Labor government of Prime Minister James Callaghan went down to defeat, thereby forcing an early election. The last such sacking took place 55 years ago, when Britain's first Labor government, led by Ramsay MacDonald, lost a similar vote of confidence...
...Labor's Callaghan, 67, and Conservative Leader Margaret Thatcher, 53, have squared off for an election campaign that is already regarded as perhaps the most important since 1945, when a massive Labor victory ushered in the welfare state. If the Tories win, as the polls now predict, Britain will gain not only its first woman Prime Minister, but a government whose resoundingly conservative views will run counter to the whole leftward drift of British politics since the end of World...
Then came Britain's winter of discontent, in which a wave of strikes badly tarnished Labor's image as the only party capable of dealing with the powerful trade unions. The strikes took on a personal note for Britons, as garbage piled up in the streets, and schools and hospitals in many cities either shut down or operated part-time; in an action that offended the country's sense of decency and fair play, ambulance drivers went on strike, putting life itself at risk. By the end of a nasty winter, Callaghan's popularity had been...
...them and their husbands once again into the front ranks. In the seven-hour debate that preceded the motion, Thatcher led off with a crisp but low-keyed assault on Callaghan for mismanaging the nation's affairs. "Never has our standing in the world been lower," she declared. "Britain is now a nation on the sidelines." She summed up Britain's needs in a phrase tailored to campaign-poster type: "Less tax and more law and order." In his scornful, witty reply, Callaghan brought down the House by skewering the minor parties for forcing an election in which...
...days after the vote that brought down the government, Britain was shaken by the unthinkable, the assassination of a shadow-cabinet member within the hallowed confines of Westminster. The Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.) claimed responsibility for planting a bomb in a blue Vauxhall driven by Airey Neave, 63, who would have been Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in a Thatcher Cabinet. It was the second assassination of a British official in as many weeks. Neave may have written his own epitaph with his views on I.R.A. terrorism: "The British public will become more resistant than ever." Still, the I.R.A...