The governing Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Edward Heath, had won four fewer seats than Labour under Harold Wilson.
[1] Thorpe anticipated a turning point in the Liberals' fortunes and campaigned under the slogan "one more heave",[1][2][3] aiming for a complete breakthrough with entering a coalition a last resort.
Future Liberal Party leader David Steel called the whole campaign "a slightly less successful re-run of February.
In practice, however, the task of retaining the fickle support that had been attracted in February, while at the same time persuading another substantial tranche of voters to desert their traditional preferences, was enormous.
[8] Under Smith, Labour adopted what many saw as a cautious approach, seeking to avoid controversy and win the next election by capitalising on the unpopularity of the Conservative government.
[9] Labour "modernisers" like Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson considered such an approach too timid and were critical of it in private and later.
"[13] Numerous political commentators used the phrase (often disparagingly) when writing about potential Labour Party electoral strategy following the 2017 general election.