phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Out of interest, mainly as it's an argument I've attempted to make but haven't been eloquent enough to get across, what do people think about this article, about how 1983 was more to do with the Falklands and the SDP split over anything else.
The article is trying to argue that 1983 wasn't because of Labour being too far left. That's a bit disingenuous, since "being too far left" (though not necessarily a policy issue, more to do with the largely local influence of Militant and the personal influence of Tony Benn) was a big cause of the SDP split in the first place.
Certainly the Falklands was very influential in terms of Conservative popularity - not just the personal popularity of Mrs Thatcher but the credibility of the government as a whole which had until then been somewhat shaky.
The big problem with Labour was its narrowing appeal to fewer and fewer industrial workers when the economy was moving away from heavy industry, and fewer and fewer office clerks displaced by computers.