On Thursday 7 September 1978, James Callaghan decided to address the nation in a formal prime ministerial broadcast about the forthcoming election. Everyone in the country expected him to announce that he was about to dissolve parliament and invite the British people to re-elect him as prime minister. During lunchtime drinks for reporters preparing to follow her forthcoming campaign, the Tory leader, Margaret Thatcher, said: “I don’t imagine he’s making a ministerial broadcast just to say he isn’t holding a general election.”
But that is precisely what he did.
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