Central Preparations

Abstract

For more than two years the parties had been aware of the possibility of having to cope with an election held at short notice. Apart from the dissolution of February 1974, British general elections have been widely anticipated in the post-war period. Choosing the time for a dissolution is a prerogative of the prime minister of the day. Yet prime ministers are constrained by the limited number of available dates and, when they take account of economic indicators and the trends in opinion polls, the date usually appears to be an obvious one. Certainly the party organisations, though theoretically always supposed to be on a war footing, expect some advance warning that an election is imminent. But once Mr Callaghan had passed by the opportunity for an autumn election, a forced dissolution was always on the cards. The shift to the government, reflected in the Berwick by-election and the opinion polls in October and November, combined with the open divisions in the Conservative party, doubtless made a number of Labour candidates in marginal seats wistful about the missed opportunity.¹ But since the summer of 1978 preparations for publicity, tactics and private polling in all parties had reached an advanced stage. The parties, except for Labour, had complete drafts of their election manifestos ready for an early contest.