ABSTRACT
Elections reflected this, with manifestos paying relatively little attention to home affairs and electoral politics generally eschewing competition around such matters. The low-key treatment of law and order, and the general avoidance of party political difference in this matter, began to change in 1970. In the aftermath of the conference, shadow Home Secretary, Quintin Hogg, who had been one of the stronger advocates of a new approach, said that he hoped ‘that the events of the past few weeks have put the issue of crime and respect for law firmly on the political map. In a speech to students toward the beginning of the electoral campaign, Harold Wilson described the Conservative Party's repositioning of itself after the Selsdon Park weekend as straightforward ‘Goldwaterism’. In an early echo of what was to come later in the decade, the manifesto promised to strengthen the police, described as ‘our principal defenders against internal attack’.
