Word: britain
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...last week the election balloon that had seemed to be nearing takeoff in Britain for most of the summer ran flat out of hot air. In a move that stunned pundits and outraged political opponents, the Prime Minister announced in a four-minute televised address to his countrymen that his minority Labor government would not call for a general election next month, as nearly everyone thought it would. Declared Callaghan: "The government must and will continue to carry out policies which are consistent and determined, which do not chop and change ..." In practical terms, that almost certainly postponed Britain...
...Britain's P.M. watchers had been expecting Callaghan to move ever since the sagging Liberal Party walked out on the 17-month-old "Lib-Lab" pact in August, taking with it its 13 crucial parliamentary votes. That left Labor nine votes short of a majority-and, in the opinion of most analysts, with little choice but to go to the polls. Instead, Callaghan evidently patched together a working majority by bargaining for the 14 yeas and nays held by Welsh and Scottish Nationalists. These extra votes should enable Callaghan to survive a Tory test of confidence in November, when...
...from that of only a year ago. Yet Callaghan and some of his closest advisers were not so sure. Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey, in particular, warned the Prime Minister "not to go for the first patch of blue sky." His reasoning: there is a good chance that Britain's economic recovery, notably a decline in inflation from 26% a year in 1975 to less than 8% at present, will have more impact on voters in another six months or so than now. Labor expects another benefit from the postponement: a new register of voters due next February...
Smallpox reappears in Britain...
...only known victim is Janet Parker, 40, a medical photographer. She developed fever and a rash in early August, but two weeks passed before her illness was diagnosed as variola major, the severe form of smallpox. The time lag is understandable. There have been no smallpox deaths in Britain for five years, and doctors rarely see the disease...