Edward Heath

Leader of the Conservative oppositionThe women of this country are going to show Mr. Wilson and his colleagues what they have been dying to tell them for a long, long time. On June 19, 1970, contrary to the predictions of the opinion polls, the Conservative Party defeated the ruling Labour Party in a general election in Great Britain. The reasons for the surprise Conservative victory were likely not British women rallying behind the Conservative Party (as opposition leader Edward Health predicted on election day) but rather a recent downswing in the national economy. With the Conservatives achieving a sound thirty-one-seat majority in the House of Commons, Harold Wilson of the Labour Party resigned as prime minister and Edward Heath became the new British leader. The greatest impact of Prime Minister Heath's subsequent four years in office was Britain's entry into the European Common Market, acause that he had advocated since its founding in the late 1950s.