No one really won the general election of February 1974, which is why there was another one in November.
On 28 February 1974 the Conservatives won the popular vote but Labour won 301 of the 635 seats and the Conservatives only 297. Heath attempted to form a coalition with the Liberals, but was unable to agree terms, and Wilson formed a minority government.
When he called the election, Heath had been under pressure from all angles – with rampant inflation, the three–day week in operation, and increased violence in Northern Ireland. He campaigned under the slogan "Who Governs Britain?" – a reference principallyly to the power of the Trade Unions, and in particular the miners' strike. By October 1974, Labour was able to boast that it had ended the miners' strike and had returned some stability, and Wilson called an election hoping to strengthen his hand. In the election campaign the Conservatives, still led by Heath, promised national unity; but their chances of forming a government were hindered by the refusal of the Ulster Unionist Party, angered by the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973 (an attempt to establish power–sharing in Northern Ireland) to take the Conservative whip at Westminster.
In the October election Labour won 319 seats, giving it a majority of just three. Heath had failed to win three of the four elections he had contested, and in February 1975 he was replaced as Conservative Party leader by Margaret Thatcher.
A period of economic crisis was now beginning to hit most Western countries, and in 1976 Wilson suddenly announced his resignation as Prime Minister. He was replaced by James Callaghan. By 1977, Labour's narrow parliamentary majority had disappeared through a series of by–election losses and defections, and Callaghan entered into a pact with the Liberals in order to retain power. Strikes in the winter of 1978–9 led to his being the first prime minister since Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 to be forced into an election by the will of the Commons, and on 3 May 1979 Thatcher's Conservatives were returned with an overall majority of 43.
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