The snap general election held on 28 February 1974, called by the Conservative prime minister, Edward Heath, produced the first hung parliament since 1929.

Heath, having gone to the country seeking a fresh mandate to confront the latest national miners’ strike, famously framed his reelection campaign around the question: “Who governs Britain?”. The electorate’s inconclusive answer led to Heath’s downfall and the formation of a minority Labour government under Harold Wilson.

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The 1974 general election was the first fought during a major economic crisis since 1931. Two years previously in January 1972, unemployment had hit the once unthinkable and politically explosive level of one million. The subsequent “Barber boom” budget, set out by chancellor Anthony Barber in March, pumped £2.5 billion into the economy through tax cuts and increased benefits.

Within months, Barber was forced to bring in deflationary measures, announce a pay freeze that led to a major confrontation with the miners and float the pound. This latter policy led to a sharp decrease in its value and further inflationary pressure on the economy.

The 1973 oil crisis only exacerbated these economic difficulties and the industrial situation. The price of oil quadrupled between October 1973 and February 1974; at the same time, uncertainty over oil supplies strengthened the miners’ position in negotiating with the government.

On 13 November 1973, the government declared a state of emergency. It represented the fifth such declaration in just over three years. The previous emergency had been proclaimed during the 1972 miners’ strike – which was only resolved after pay increases of between £4.50 and £6 per week, amounting to a rise of around 27%, were granted.

By 1973, however, miners’ wages had plunged to eighteenth in the industrial wage league. The miners responded with an overtime ban that cut coal production by 40%.

On 13 December, Heath announced that from midnight on 31 December commercial consumption of electricity would be limited to three consecutive days each week. On top of this, all television broadcasting after 10:30 pm would be banned, excepting the Christmas and New Year holidays. The prime minister conceded that the country would “have to postpone some of the hopes and aims we have set for ourselves for expansion and for our standard of living.”

On 24 January 1974, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) members voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action, rejecting the government’s latest pay offer.

With the country still in the dark, Heath responded on 7 February by calling a snap election.

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In a broadcast upon calling the election, Heath appealed to the nation: “This time the strife has got to stop. Only you can stop it. It is time for you to speak, with your vote.”

The prime minister asked: “Do you want a strong government which has clear authority for the future to take decisions which will be needed?

“Do you want parliament and the elected government to continue to fight strenuously against inflation? Or do you want them to abandon the struggle against rising prices under pressure from one particularly powerful group of workers…

“This time of strife has got to stop. Only you can stop it. It’s time for you to speak – with your vote. It’s time for your voice to be heard – the voice of the moderate and reasonable people of Britain: the voice of the majority.

“It’s time for you to say to the extremists, the militants, and the plain and simply misguided: we’ve had enough. There’s a lot to be done. For heaven’s sake, let’s get on with it.”

Wilson, the Labour leader of the opposition, responded: “The government called this election in panic… They are unable to govern and dare not tell the people the truth.”

Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party, condemned Heath for calling “a bitterly divisive election.”

The miners refused to postpone their strike during the election campaign.

The Conservative manifesto, Firm Action for a Fair Britain, referred to the “dominance of a small group of power-hungry trade union leaders”. During the campaign, however, Heath’s position was undermined by a report from the government’s own Pay Board, published on 21 February, which suggested the miners’ pay claim was justified.

Furthermore, in a significant late intervention, the influential former Conservative defence secretary, Enoch Powell, urged voters to back the Labour Party as a protest against Heath’s europhile policies, which had taken Britain into the European Economic Community (EEC) on 1 January 1973.

The Labour manifesto, Let us Work Together: Labour’s Way Out of a Crisis, included a commitment to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the EEC and to put the outcome to a vote.

In a speech in Birmingham on 23 February 1974, Powell claimed the main issue in the campaign was whether Britain was to “remain a democratic nation… or whether it will become one province in a new Europe super-state”.

Powell said it was people’s “national duty” to oppose those who had deprived parliament of “its sole right to make the laws and impose the taxes of the country.”

The former Conservative cabinet minister had previously described Heath’s decision to call an election as “fraudulent” and an act of “gross irresponsibility”.

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The result was a stalemate. While the Conservatives won a slightly larger share of the popular vote (37.9%) than Labour (37.2%), Harold Wilson’s party secured 14 more seats, winning 301 to the Conservatives’ 297.

But arguably the most dramatic story was the performance of Thorpe’s Liberal Party, which gained over six million votes – 19.3% of the total – but won only 14 seats. The Liberals had fielded their greatest number of candidates since 1906.

The strong Liberal performance saw the Conservative share of the vote drop by 8.2%, and Labour’s by 5.8%. The turnout for the election was 78.2% – six points higher than that of the post-war low of 1970.

In Northern Ireland, the snap election precipitated the creation of a successful pact amongst those opposed to the Sunningdale Agreement – an attempt, negotiated in December 1973, to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive. The newly formed United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) was composed of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party (VUPP).

The campaign slogan of the UUUC was “Dublin is just a Sunningdale away” – capitalising on unionist fears of Irish unification.

The UUP had resigned the Conservative whip at Westminster in protest against Heath’s decision to impose direct rule on Northern Ireland, effectively dismantling the region’s devolved parliament. Heath took this action “without taking its party colleagues in Northern Ireland into confidence and consultation”.

This detachment of the UUP from Heath’s Conservatives was therefore significant in enabling Labour to secure a narrow plurality of seats.

Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party (SNP), buoyed by the discovery of North Sea oil off the coast of Scotland, doubled its share of the Scottish vote and its number of seats rose from one to seven. Its campaign led with the slogan: “It’s Scotland’s oil”. Plaid Cymru also won its first two seats in a general election.

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In the wake of the election, Heath exercised his constitutional right to attempt to remain in post as prime minister. At the cabinet’s first meeting after the election, on 1 March, he told ministers that the result was “disappointing for the government and also confusing to interpret”.

Heath pointed to “three courses” open to the government. The first was to resign immediately, allowing Harold Wilson to form a government. The second was for the government to exercise its right to test whether it could command support in parliament for its programme. The third option was to seek external backing from smaller parties for a programme “designed to deal with the nation’s immediate difficulties”.

Heath cautioned, however, that any support on the Ulster Unionists would have to be treated as “unreliable”. A more plausible alternative, he suggested, would be to consult the Liberal Party about their willingness to enter a coalition with the Conservatives or support a joint programme.

According to cabinet minutes released by the National Archives, Heath asked his ministerial colleagues for their view on whether the Conservatives, having secured a plurality of the popular vote, should attempt the formation of a “right-of-centre coalition” before relinquishing office to Labour.

The cabinet discussion suggested that although the government had failed to secure the strong mandate it had sought, there nevertheless existed a “large anti-socialist majority” in the country which supported Britain’s continued membership of the EEC.

The cabinet agreed that Heath should open talks with the Liberals.

Heath ultimately offered the Liberals a full coalition with a cabinet seat for their leader and a “speaker’s conference to consider the desirability and possibility of a change in our electoral arrangements.”

The proposition added: “We should then be ready to co-operate in seeing that the conclusions and recommendations of the conference were put to parliament in the customary way.”

Jeremy Thorpe, under pressure from Liberal activists, could not accept these terms. 

Wilson, meanwhile, insisted that he would not be attempting to agree any deals with rival parties.

Heath resigned on 4 March, allowing the Labour leader to return to Downing Street at the head of a minority government.

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Labour’s manifesto had touted a “social contract” with the trade unions that would define its approach to industrial relations. Within days of taking office, Michael Foot, the new employment secretary, settled the miners’ pay claim. As such, on 6 March 1974, the coal miners called off their four-week strike after accepting a wage increase of 35% – more than double the amount offered under Heath’s government.

The three-day working week ended on 8 March.

Joe Gormley, the president of the NUM, responded: “We have proved that when the spirit and willingness is there, a settlement can be achieved in one day rather than the long drawn out exercise we have been involved in unnecessarily.”

However, the unstable parliamentary arithmetic, with Labour 17 seats short of a majority, made another election effectively inevitable. It followed in October of the same year; 1974 became the first year to feature two general elections since 1910.

Wilson was returned as prime minister in October, with a slim majority of just three seats.