page_title: Edward Heath
section_title: Leader of the Opposition (1965–1970)
hierarchical_section_title: Edward Heath / Leader of the Opposition (1965–1970)
caption_attribution_description: English: Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, right, meets at the Pentagon with Edward Heath, leader of the opposition party in the House of Commons, Great Britain.
context_page_description: Sir Edward Richard George Heath, KG, MBE, often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath served 51 years as a Member of Parliament from 1950 to 2001. He was a strong supporter of the European Communities, and after winning the decisive vote in the House of Commons by 356 to 244, he led the negotiations that culminated in Britain's entry into the EC on 1 January 1973. It was, says biographer John Campbell, "Heath's finest hour". Although he planned to be an innovator as Prime Minister, his government foundered on economic difficulties, including high inflation and major strikes. He became an embittered critic of Margaret Thatcher, who supplanted him as party leader.
  Born the child of a carpenter and a maid, Heath was educated at a grammar school and became a leader in student politics at the University of Oxford. He served as an officer in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War. He worked briefly in the Civil Service, but resigned in order to stand for Parliament, and was elected for Bexley in the 1950 general election.
context_section_description: After the Conservative Party lost the general election of 1964, the defeated Home changed the party leadership rules to allow for a ballot by MPs, and then resigned. The following year, Heath—who was Shadow Chancellor at the time, and had recently won favourable publicity for leading the fight against Labour's Finance Bill—unexpectedly won the party's leadership contest, gaining 150 votes to Reginald Maudling's 133 and Enoch Powell's 15. Heath became the Conservatives' youngest leader and retained office after the party's defeat in the general election of 1966.
  In April 1968, Enoch Powell made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech, which criticised immigration to the United Kingdom. Soon afterwards, Heath telephoned Margaret Thatcher to inform her that he was going to sack Powell from the Shadow Cabinet; she recalled that she "really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". The next day, Heath sacked Powell. Several Conservatives on the right protested against Powell's sacking. According to Heath, he never spoke to Powell again.
caption: Heath meeting at the Pentagon with US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1966
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, right, meets at the Pentagon with Edward Heath, leader of the opposition party in the House of Commons, Great Britain.", "Image Make": "Nikon", "Image Model": "Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 8000 ED", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:04:08 09:29:56", "Image Artist": "FRANK HALL", "Image ExifOffset": "408", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "570", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4268", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2003"}