The Importance of Calling an Election Early

Philip Hammond: We can look to lessons from 1974 about the merits of calling an election early. It went pretty badly for Edward Heath in the February of that year, but it worked out well for Harold Wilson just eight months later. In January 1974, you have a lot of people who we now think of as quote unquote wats like Jim Pryor who are actually in quite a hard line frame of mind. And so he leaves it. He calls an election on the 7th of February and it's then held on the 28th. Incredibly short campaign. I'm not sure what Charles was saying, three week campaign. But even so, that's enough for it to fall apart