Labour Party

The Labour Party was one of the two dominant political parties (the other being the Conservative Party) in the United Kingdom during the 20th and 21st centuries. Several of its leaders had held the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

In October 1963, the Labour leader Harold Wilson made a speech in favour of science technology at a Scarborough conference of his party. (MA: Who Killed Kennedy)

In 1964, Labour won the UK general election and Wilson succeeded Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Prime Minister. James Callaghan was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the immediate aftermath of the election, General Peters led a military coup against Wilson's government. However, it was defeated by the Intrusion Countermeasures Group. (CM: State of Emergency)

In later years, Wilson's position seemed untenable after the failures of the Wenley Moor nuclear research facility in October 1969 (DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians) and the Inferno Project in February 1970 (DW: Inferno) were publicised by James Stevens in his "Bad Science" series of articles.

Wilson called a general election for June 1970. The Labour Party lost and the Conservative leader Edward Heath became Prime Minister. Political observers speculated that the publication of the book version of "Bad Science" had coincided not-so-incidentally with the election. (MA: Who Killed Kennedy)

At a later point in the 1970s, the Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe led a coalition government as Prime Minister after the effects of alien invasions damaged support for Labour and the Conservatives. (WEB: Party Politics)

By 1976, Labour was once again in government with Callaghan as Prime Minister. (BFA: The Oseidon Adventure) He served in that position until 1979, when he was succeeded by the Conservative Margaret Thatcher. (DW: Tooth and Claw)

On 9 June 1983, Labour lost the general election in a landslide to the ruling Conservative Party. (BFA: Rat Trap) The party was still out of office in 1987 while Thatcher remained Prime Minister. (DW: Father's Day)