Opportunity lost

Further to Colin Hamilton’s powers of recall (Letters, 26 March), Thatcherism and 18 years of Tory government was a direct result of more than two million more voters in England voting Tory than Labour, which was deeply unpopular following a winter of endless strikes. There had to be an election within six months of the no-confidence vote and nothing would have changed the result.

After the majority of Scotland voted for an assembly in 1979, Callaghan and Michael

wanted to leave the devolution act on the statute books with a view to reviving it, but English Labour MPS vowed to block the plan. In his memoirs, Callaghan placed the blame firmly with his own backbenchers who preferred Tory rule to home rule.

On 28 March, 1979, the vital no-confidence vote was lost through the absence of Sir Alfred Broughton, Labour MP for Batley, who was too ill to attend, and the unexpected non-appearance of two Irish republican MPS, who normally supported Labour but felt that Labour had doublecrossed them on redrawing the political boundaries in Northern Ireland. They actually travelled to London with the specific intention not to vote for the government.

Had all of the Labour movement campaigned for devolution in 1979, a Scottish assembly could have been a shield against the worst aspects of Thatcherism – but given recent revelations that Gordon brown andhm treasury ignored the first Labour/ Lib Dem Scottish Executive, then perhaps not.

MARY THOMAS Watson Crescent, Edinburgh