Downing Street Diary Volume Two

At first Callaghan quickly established dominance over his cabinet and restored calm after the plots and scandals of the later Wilson years. His incomes policy reduced inflation and, in the teeth of opposition from the left wing, he negotiated the notorious IMF loan at the expense of eliminating some of Labor's most cherished dreams. By 1978, Callaghan, a politician of great patriotism and decency, seemed to have succeeded in steering Britain into calmer waters. But then the storm broke. Trade union militants brushed aside their mediocre leaders and launched a ferocious attack on Callaghan's pay policy, driving up inflation and demonstrating the government's impotence. In the diaries we see the prime minister and the government paralyzed as the 'Winter of Discontent' began to bite and politics took to the streets. As Labor drifted to inevitable defeat in the 1979 election we see Callaghan fighting honorably. From the smoke of battle there emerges a striking new leader: Margaret Thatcher. The diaries describe vividly both the decline and final collapse of "old" Labor and how Mrs. Thatcher took the opportunity to launch her crusade to dismantle trade union power and much of the British public sector.