ABSTRACT
Harold Wilson’s return to Number 10 in 1974 could not have differed more from the circumstances surrounding the next time that Labour would make the transition from opposition to office, in 1997. Wilson was nearing the end of his political career: had he won the 1970 general election, he intended to retire midterm;1 having lost the 1970 election, he determined that he would not serve for long once he returned to Downing Street. It was not an easy time to resume office: Ted Heath, Wilson believed, had made the country ungovernable and the economy and unions were out of control. And in Parliament Labour was in a minority; the October 1974 election, by which a thirty-four deficit was turned into a majority of three, delayed the added problems of minority government for just two years. In contrast, the Labour inheritance in 1997 was golden.
