Britain at the polls, 1992

How could an incumbent party, saddled with a controversial leader, whose personal unpopularity was reaching new lows, manage to engineer an electoral victory in the face of a painful and persistent economic recession? After nearly a generation in power, where did the Conservatives find the political will to shed the cumbersome mantle of Thatcherism and defeat the combined challenges of a rejuvenated Labour party and a newly energised centre party? Why did the voters in Britain, in defiance both of conventional wisdom and of most pollsters, choose to cap a long and remarkably volatile campaign season by awarding to the party of cold competence an unprecedented fourth consecutive Parliamentary majority? And how is this extraordinary electoral mandate likely to affect future prospects for the competitive two-party system of governance that has characterised politics in Britain since the end of World War II? In Britain at the Polls, 1992,^ Anthony King leads a number of prominent political scientists whose analyses of the most recent general election serve to put both the process and the results into a broad context of contemporary politics. The discussion begins with IVOR CREWE's perceptive evaluation of the immediate electoral impact of Margaret Thatcher's personality and policies and the ironic dimensions of her economic, social, and cultural legacies. The fifteen-year reign of the "Iron Lady" and her abrupt replacement by John Major wrought distinct changes in the Conservative party, as PHILIP NORTON explains in tracing the evolution of the dominant governing faction from 1979 to the present. PATRICK SEYD examines the process of reappraisal and realignment that transformed Labour, during more than a decade out of power, into a strong, if ultimately unsuccessful, challenger for control of the national political agenda.^ The centre itself saw great upheaval during the Thatcher era, and DAVID DENVER explores the developmental progress from the old Liberal party, through the fractious Alliance period between campaigns, to the Liberal Democrats of 1992. KENNETH NEWTON dissects the long campaign, exposing Labour's attempts to reshape its popular image of benevolent incompetence and the Conservatives' strategy to deflect public attention from the spectre of recession. The unexpected Conservative victory made losers not only of their opposition challengers, but of the pollsters who had predicted with near unanimity at least a hung Parliament, and DAVID SANDERS's breakdown of the electoral results identifies the forces behind the dramatic reversal of fortunes in the campaign's closing days. The prospects for the future of the British political system under one-party dominance inspire ANTHONY KING's summary consideration of the probably historic repercussions of the April election.^ Bringing together the timely judgements of a distinguished company of political analysts, Britain at the Polls, 1992 thus creates a valuable perspective for understanding just what happened and why in this most unpredictable campaign and for looking ahead to what its results may mean for the political landscape of the next century.