WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.580 Welcome back to another Deep Dive. If you are 00:00:02.580 --> 00:00:06.139 a curious learner looking for that perfect intellectual 00:00:06.139 --> 00:00:09.619 shortcut today, you are in exactly the right 00:00:09.619 --> 00:00:11.740 place. You really are. We know you want those 00:00:11.740 --> 00:00:14.279 fascinating aha moments, but without having to 00:00:14.279 --> 00:00:16.500 wade through a massive mountain of information 00:00:16.500 --> 00:00:20.359 overload. And we have a fantastic one lined up 00:00:20.359 --> 00:00:22.480 for you. Oh, absolutely. It's a great one. Today 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:24.899 we are looking at a Wikipedia article detailing 00:00:24.899 --> 00:00:28.579 the history of a highly specific, curiously persistent 00:00:28.579 --> 00:00:31.899 phrase in British politics, and that phrase is, 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:35.420 one more heave. Right. It sounds almost like 00:00:35.420 --> 00:00:38.740 a, I don't know, a nautical command. Or something 00:00:38.740 --> 00:00:40.539 you'd hear on a tug of war fuel. Yeah, exactly. 00:00:40.799 --> 00:00:43.780 But it actually carries a remarkably rich and 00:00:43.780 --> 00:00:45.979 honestly somewhat dark political history. It 00:00:45.979 --> 00:00:48.600 really does. So our mission today is to explore 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:51.299 how this supposedly motivational political slogan 00:00:51.299 --> 00:00:54.100 evolved. Because it started out as a very literal 00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:56.780 call to action. But over the decades, it completely 00:00:56.780 --> 00:00:59.520 morphed into a cautionary tale. And eventually 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:02.420 a really bitter insult about political complacency. 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:04.659 Which is such a fascinating trajectory for just 00:01:04.659 --> 00:01:07.109 three words. Right. It turns out to be this brilliant 00:01:07.109 --> 00:01:10.349 lens for looking at strategy, the illusion of 00:01:10.349 --> 00:01:13.329 momentum and, you know, the stories we tell ourselves 00:01:13.329 --> 00:01:15.269 when we think we are just on the edge of success. 00:01:16.090 --> 00:01:19.049 But, oh, before we get into the timeline, there 00:01:19.049 --> 00:01:21.430 is a very quick point we need to establish regarding 00:01:21.430 --> 00:01:24.040 the source material. Yes. Very important point. 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:27.400 Because our source text deals with the real world 00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:29.540 histories and the internal warfare of the British 00:01:29.540 --> 00:01:32.159 conservative, labor and liberal parties. It is 00:01:32.159 --> 00:01:34.599 vital to note that we are not taking sides. Right. 00:01:34.700 --> 00:01:37.219 And no sides here. We are not endorsing any of 00:01:37.219 --> 00:01:39.540 the political viewpoints discussed today. We 00:01:39.540 --> 00:01:42.920 are strictly here as your guides to impartially 00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:45.879 unpack the historical facts, the strategies and 00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:48.400 the data presented in the text. Exactly. We are 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:50.599 just here for the strategy, the history and the 00:01:50.599 --> 00:01:53.109 underlying psychology of it all. So, OK, let's 00:01:53.109 --> 00:01:55.469 unpack this. We need to travel back in time to 00:01:55.469 --> 00:01:57.930 the incredibly unpredictable, volatile political 00:01:57.930 --> 00:02:01.189 landscape of 1970s Britain. Are volatile is the 00:02:01.189 --> 00:02:03.689 perfect word for it. Set the scene for us. What 00:02:03.689 --> 00:02:07.109 exactly is happening in early 1974? OK, so we 00:02:07.109 --> 00:02:10.710 are looking at the February 1974 United Kingdom 00:02:10.710 --> 00:02:13.430 general election. At this time, the Liberal Party 00:02:13.430 --> 00:02:16.139 is being led by a man named Jeremy Thorpe. And 00:02:16.139 --> 00:02:20.020 he'd been at the helm since 1967. OK. Now, their 00:02:20.020 --> 00:02:22.979 previous election in 1970 had been quite disappointing. 00:02:23.219 --> 00:02:25.099 They actually lost half their seats in the House 00:02:25.099 --> 00:02:27.439 of Commons, dropping from 12 down to six. How 00:02:27.439 --> 00:02:31.319 cute. Right. But February 1974 delivers a massive 00:02:31.319 --> 00:02:33.819 shock to the political establishment. Thorpe 00:02:33.819 --> 00:02:35.979 and the liberals just surge out of nowhere. They 00:02:35.979 --> 00:02:39.840 win over six million votes. Wow. Which was capturing 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:43.539 19 .3 percent of the popular vote. And they increase 00:02:43.539 --> 00:02:46.009 their members of parliament to 14. To put that 00:02:46.009 --> 00:02:48.590 into historical perspective, this was their best 00:02:48.590 --> 00:02:51.050 result in terms of seats since 1945 and their 00:02:51.050 --> 00:02:52.770 best percentage of the popular vote since all 00:02:52.770 --> 00:02:55.150 the way back in 1929. I mean, over six million 00:02:55.150 --> 00:02:57.370 people looking at the two major parties and deciding 00:02:57.370 --> 00:02:59.090 to park their vote with a third option. That 00:02:59.090 --> 00:03:01.789 is a huge disruption. But the aftermath of this 00:03:01.789 --> 00:03:04.250 election is just pure chaos, creating what is 00:03:04.250 --> 00:03:06.569 known in the UK as a hung parliament. Right. 00:03:06.629 --> 00:03:09.009 The dreaded hung parliament. And for those who 00:03:09.009 --> 00:03:11.349 might not be familiar with the term, a hung parliament 00:03:11.349 --> 00:03:14.789 happens when no single political party wins an 00:03:14.789 --> 00:03:17.020 election. absolute majority of seats. You essentially 00:03:17.020 --> 00:03:20.340 have a legislature where nobody has the sheer 00:03:20.340 --> 00:03:23.240 numbers to pass laws on their own. Exactly. You're 00:03:23.240 --> 00:03:25.639 paralyzed. So the governing conservative party, 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:28.400 often referred to as the Tories, was led by Prime 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:31.419 Minister Edward Heath. They actually won four 00:03:31.419 --> 00:03:33.879 fewer seats than the opposition Labor Party, 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:36.939 which was led by Harold Wilson. But Heath doesn't 00:03:36.939 --> 00:03:39.500 just immediately pack his bags and leave number 00:03:39.500 --> 00:03:42.180 10 Downing Street. He tries to cling to power 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:44.879 by forming a coalition government. Right. Heath 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:46.900 is just desperate to cobble together a working 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:49.319 majority so he can stay in power. Right. So he 00:03:49.319 --> 00:03:53.120 reaches out to Thorpe and the liberals as well 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:55.909 as the Ulster Unionist Party. OK. But Thorpe 00:03:55.909 --> 00:03:58.229 was never particularly enthusiastic about propping 00:03:58.229 --> 00:04:00.930 up a weakened conservative government. He looks 00:04:00.930 --> 00:04:03.509 at his six million votes and decides to play 00:04:03.509 --> 00:04:06.490 absolute hardball. Naturally. He demands major 00:04:06.490 --> 00:04:08.810 electoral reforms in exchange for his party's 00:04:08.810 --> 00:04:11.270 support. Which makes total sense from his perspective, 00:04:11.349 --> 00:04:14.030 considering millions of votes only translated 00:04:14.030 --> 00:04:17.040 into 14 seats for his party. Yeah. The math is 00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:19.420 incredibly frustrating for them. But Heath balks 00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:21.879 at this. He is unwilling to fundamentally change 00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:24.540 the voting system. So the negotiations completely 00:04:24.540 --> 00:04:28.560 collapse. Heath finally resigns and Labor's Harold 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:30.819 Wilson returns for his second spell as prime 00:04:30.819 --> 00:04:34.699 minister. But here is the catch. There's always 00:04:34.699 --> 00:04:37.019 a catch. Wilson doesn't have an overall majority 00:04:37.019 --> 00:04:39.759 in parliament either. He is running a minority 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:42.279 government. Which means everyone in the country, 00:04:42.360 --> 00:04:44.699 from the politicians all the way down to the 00:04:44.699 --> 00:04:47.540 voters, knows this government cannot possibly 00:04:47.540 --> 00:04:49.399 last. They're going to have to go back to the 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:52.600 polls very soon to get a decisive result. Right. 00:04:52.740 --> 00:04:54.879 And indeed, Wilson calls for another general 00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:58.240 election, setting it for September 1974. That 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:01.040 is a fast turnaround. Incredibly tight. And this 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:04.540 is exactly where our phrase is born. Jeremy Thorpe 00:05:04.540 --> 00:05:06.899 is looking at this upcoming election, and he 00:05:06.899 --> 00:05:10.319 senses a massive, historic turning point for 00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:12.199 his party. He doesn't just want to be a junior 00:05:12.199 --> 00:05:15.000 partner in a coalition anymore. He views a coalition 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.379 as an absolute last resort. He wants a complete 00:05:18.379 --> 00:05:20.560 electoral breakthrough. He feels they are right 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:23.399 on the precipice. And so an advertising agent 00:05:23.399 --> 00:05:25.839 and liberal parliamentary candidate named Adrian 00:05:25.839 --> 00:05:29.060 Slade coins a campaign slogan to capture that 00:05:29.060 --> 00:05:32.920 specific feeling. The slogan is one more heave. 00:05:32.939 --> 00:05:35.720 One more heave. The idea is that they have already 00:05:35.720 --> 00:05:37.800 done the heavy lifting back in February. They 00:05:37.800 --> 00:05:39.759 pushed the boulder most of the way up the mountain. 00:05:39.879 --> 00:05:43.300 And now they just need one final collective push. 00:05:43.420 --> 00:05:46.000 One more heave. One more heave to break through 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:48.100 the establishment entirely. It's a very physical, 00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:51.079 visceral metaphor. Yeah. But according to the 00:05:51.079 --> 00:05:53.519 source material. The public generally considered 00:05:53.519 --> 00:05:55.699 it quite uninspiring at the time. Oh, really? 00:05:55.939 --> 00:05:58.819 Yeah. And unfortunately for Thorpe, the reality 00:05:58.819 --> 00:06:02.259 of the October 1974 election was incredibly disappointing. 00:06:02.540 --> 00:06:05.240 It was a complete flop. Wow. Despite the slogan 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:07.360 and all that internal optimism, the liberals 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:10.019 actually lost momentum. They received over 700 00:06:10.019 --> 00:06:12.720 ,000 fewer votes than they had in February, and 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:15.100 they returned with 13 MPs actually dropping a 00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:17.699 seat. A future leader of the Liberal Party, David 00:06:17.699 --> 00:06:21.459 Steele, had a rather brutal, completely unvarnished 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:25.639 He called the October campaign a slightly less 00:06:25.639 --> 00:06:28.680 successful rerun of February. Ouch. But wait, 00:06:28.759 --> 00:06:30.459 let's look at the mechanics of this. If they 00:06:30.459 --> 00:06:32.639 just pulled in six million votes a few months 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:35.620 prior, why wouldn't Thorpe naturally assume they 00:06:35.620 --> 00:06:37.660 were on the verge of replacing the major parties? 00:06:38.420 --> 00:06:41.639 It seems logical. It seems entirely logical to 00:06:41.639 --> 00:06:43.519 think that just a little more effort would put 00:06:43.519 --> 00:06:45.800 them over the top. What was actually stopping 00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:47.720 them? What's fascinating here is the underlying 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:50.319 mathematics and the voter psychology of the time. 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:53.180 The historian David Dutton wrote extensively 00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:55.439 about this in his book, A History of the Liberal 00:06:55.439 --> 00:06:58.639 Party Since 1900. Okay. Dutton points out the 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:01.860 inherent flaw in the one more heave logic. By 00:07:01.860 --> 00:07:04.660 adopting that phrase, the party fell into a massive 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:07.759 cognitive trap. They were experiencing an illusion 00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:10.420 of momentum. An illusion of momentum. Exactly. 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:13.420 They mistook the structural ceiling of a protest 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:16.259 vote for the floor of a genuine political realignment. 00:07:16.500 --> 00:07:19.220 Meaning? The people who voted for them in February 00:07:19.220 --> 00:07:21.699 were just angry at the main parties, not necessarily 00:07:21.699 --> 00:07:25.959 newly minted, lifelong liberals. Precisely. They 00:07:25.959 --> 00:07:28.279 were fighting a near impossible two front war. 00:07:28.839 --> 00:07:32.339 First, they had to somehow retain all that fickle 00:07:32.339 --> 00:07:34.939 protest vote support they had unexpectedly attracted 00:07:34.939 --> 00:07:37.620 in February. Which is hard enough. Right. And 00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:40.000 at the exact same time, to actually gain seats, 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:42.759 they had to persuade an entirely new substantial 00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:45.959 tranche of voters to completely abandon their 00:07:45.959 --> 00:07:48.279 traditional lifelong party preferences. That 00:07:48.279 --> 00:07:51.420 is a tall order. It is. And beyond voter psychology, 00:07:52.040 --> 00:07:54.259 the electoral system itself was working heavily 00:07:54.259 --> 00:07:58.110 against them. Britain uses a first past the post 00:07:58.110 --> 00:08:00.629 voting system. Just to clarify for listeners 00:08:00.629 --> 00:08:02.490 who might be used to proportional representation, 00:08:02.970 --> 00:08:05.470 first past the post means whoever gets the most 00:08:05.470 --> 00:08:08.430 votes in a specific local district wins that 00:08:08.430 --> 00:08:10.709 district's single seat. Right. If you consistently 00:08:10.709 --> 00:08:12.730 come in second place in every district across 00:08:12.730 --> 00:08:14.870 the entire country, you could theoretically have 00:08:14.870 --> 00:08:16.970 millions of votes and zero seats in parliament. 00:08:17.269 --> 00:08:20.310 Exactly. Get nothing for second place. And Dutton 00:08:20.310 --> 00:08:22.750 highlights just how punishing this math was for 00:08:22.750 --> 00:08:24.829 the liberals. He points out that even if they 00:08:24.829 --> 00:08:27.149 had managed to find an extra 5 percent of the 00:08:27.149 --> 00:08:30.279 total vote nationally, And if that vote was evenly 00:08:30.279 --> 00:08:32.539 distributed across the country, it would have 00:08:32.539 --> 00:08:35.759 only produced six extra MPs for them. Wow. So 00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:37.659 you could go out, move mountains on the campaign 00:08:37.659 --> 00:08:40.159 trail, convince hundreds of thousands of new 00:08:40.159 --> 00:08:43.039 people to back you, and your reward is just a 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:45.639 handful of seats. It's brutal. It really highlights 00:08:45.639 --> 00:08:49.019 how a slogan, one more heave, implied a simple 00:08:49.019 --> 00:08:52.039 effort to reward ratio that absolutely did not 00:08:52.039 --> 00:08:53.799 exist in the reality of the British electoral 00:08:53.799 --> 00:08:57.110 map. Pushing harder doesn't work if you are pushing 00:08:57.110 --> 00:08:59.629 against a reinforced concrete wall. It just leaves 00:08:59.629 --> 00:09:02.230 you exhausted. Right. And this massive disappointment 00:09:02.230 --> 00:09:04.590 marks the beginning of the end for Jeremy Thorpe's 00:09:04.590 --> 00:09:07.549 tenure as leader. And it ends in a way that sounds 00:09:07.549 --> 00:09:09.750 like it was scripted for a true crime show. It 00:09:09.750 --> 00:09:12.190 really does. It is one of the more shocking postscripts 00:09:12.190 --> 00:09:14.330 in British political history. His leadership 00:09:14.330 --> 00:09:17.370 totally unravels. He is ultimately ousted as 00:09:17.370 --> 00:09:21.009 liberal leader in May 1976 because of what became 00:09:21.009 --> 00:09:23.379 known as the Thorpe Affair. The Thorpe Affair. 00:09:23.399 --> 00:09:26.179 Yes. This scandal centered around his alleged 00:09:26.179 --> 00:09:28.720 homosexual relationship with a man named Norman 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:31.799 Scott. And it involves a hired hitman. It does. 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:34.159 The scandal escalated to include the bizarre 00:09:34.159 --> 00:09:36.360 and tragic shooting of Norman Scott's dog by 00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:38.879 a hired gunman, which was allegedly part of a 00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:41.340 botched plot to silence Scott. Unbelievable. 00:09:41.399 --> 00:09:43.519 Thorpe was actually later tried for conspiracy 00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:46.600 and incitement to murder. And while he was acquitted 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:48.860 of those criminal charges, the political damage 00:09:48.860 --> 00:09:51.960 was absolute. He ultimately lost his parliamentary 00:09:51.960 --> 00:09:55.759 seat at the 1979 UK general election. What an 00:09:55.759 --> 00:09:58.580 incredible rise and fall. So the phrase one more 00:09:58.580 --> 00:10:01.159 heave starts out as this very literal physical 00:10:01.159 --> 00:10:04.259 metaphor for a campaign pushing for a breakthrough. 00:10:04.559 --> 00:10:07.200 And it ends up associated with a completely stalled 00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:09.440 movement and a disgraced leader. Yeah. But the 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:12.100 phrase does not die in the 1970s. It goes dormant 00:10:12.100 --> 00:10:14.259 and then it gets resurrected decades later in 00:10:14.259 --> 00:10:17.080 the 1990s, completely transformed. Let's fast 00:10:17.080 --> 00:10:20.240 forward to 1992. Set the stage for us. OK, so 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:22.759 we are looking at the landscape. ahead of the 00:10:22.759 --> 00:10:26.340 1992 UK general election. The Conservative Party, 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:29.899 again the Tories, is in power and they are attempting 00:10:29.899 --> 00:10:32.799 something historic. They are campaigning for 00:10:32.799 --> 00:10:36.059 a fourth straight election victory. Four in a 00:10:36.059 --> 00:10:39.220 row. Yeah. They have recently undergone a massive 00:10:39.220 --> 00:10:42.480 internal shift, replacing the iconic and polarizing 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:45.340 Margaret Thatcher with John Major as prime minister. 00:10:45.620 --> 00:10:48.159 But the environment is highly unfavorable for 00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:51.100 them. The UK economy is approaching a recession 00:10:51.100 --> 00:10:53.559 and the Conservative Party is heavily racked 00:10:53.559 --> 00:10:55.840 by internal divisions regarding their relationship 00:10:55.840 --> 00:10:58.279 with Europe. Meanwhile, the Labour Party is being 00:10:58.279 --> 00:11:00.220 led by Neil Kinnock and they are consistently 00:11:00.220 --> 00:11:02.960 ahead in the polls. Pretty much everyone expects 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:05.179 Labour to finally break the Conservative winning 00:11:05.179 --> 00:11:06.960 streak. Everyone thought it was a done deal. 00:11:07.139 --> 00:11:09.379 But the Tories completely confound the pollsters. 00:11:09.460 --> 00:11:11.600 They win the election. Not only do they win, 00:11:11.720 --> 00:11:14.440 they receive the most votes of any party at any 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:16.379 general election in history up to that point. 00:11:16.500 --> 00:11:18.539 It was a stunner. It's worth noting they only 00:11:18.539 --> 00:11:22.139 return a very slim 10 -seat majority, but a win 00:11:22.139 --> 00:11:25.320 is a win. Kinnick is devastated and announces 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:28.220 his resignation. And this paves the way for a 00:11:28.220 --> 00:11:31.679 man named John Smith to win the 1992 Labor Party 00:11:31.679 --> 00:11:34.440 leadership election. Prior to this, Smith was 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:36.679 the shadow chancellor of the Exchequer. For our 00:11:36.679 --> 00:11:38.840 global listeners, the shadow chancellor is basically 00:11:38.840 --> 00:11:41.259 the lead financial spokesperson for the opposition 00:11:41.259 --> 00:11:43.799 party, the person whose job it is to critique 00:11:43.799 --> 00:11:46.220 the government's economic policies. Exactly. 00:11:46.779 --> 00:11:48.980 And this transition brings us right back to our 00:11:48.980 --> 00:11:52.519 phrase. Under John Smith, Labor adopts a strategy 00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:55.000 that many observers see as intensely cautious. 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:58.159 His approach is essentially to avoid controversy 00:11:58.159 --> 00:12:00.620 at all costs and to plan on winning the next 00:12:00.620 --> 00:12:02.980 election simply by capitalizing on the growing 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:04.980 unpopularity of the conservative government. 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:06.720 Here's where it gets really interesting. This 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:09.820 deliberate, cautious, waiting game strategy gets 00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:11.759 a nickname. People start calling it one more 00:12:11.759 --> 00:12:14.659 heave. Yeah. But this time it is not an optimistic. 00:12:15.210 --> 00:12:17.549 campaign slogan. It is being used pejoratively. 00:12:17.750 --> 00:12:20.070 It becomes an insult hurled by his own side. 00:12:20.210 --> 00:12:22.450 It caused deep fundamental rifts within the Labor 00:12:22.450 --> 00:12:25.269 Party itself. It sparked a fierce debate about 00:12:25.269 --> 00:12:27.289 what an opposition party is actually supposed 00:12:27.289 --> 00:12:31.100 to do. Let's look at the critics first. In 1993, 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:34.320 the Fabian Society, which is a highly influential 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:38.139 socialist think tank tied to labor, openly claimed 00:12:38.139 --> 00:12:40.820 that one more heave actually meant doing nothing 00:12:40.820 --> 00:12:44.220 and changing nothing. They accused the party 00:12:44.220 --> 00:12:47.940 leadership of sleepwalking to oblivion. Sleepwalking 00:12:47.940 --> 00:12:50.639 to oblivion. That is quite the indictment from 00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:52.820 an organization on your own side of the aisle. 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:55.820 It illustrates the profound frustration. And 00:12:55.820 --> 00:12:58.879 this exasperation was shared heavily by a growing 00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:01.340 faction within labor known as the Modernizers. 00:13:01.820 --> 00:13:04.399 These were figures like Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, 00:13:04.519 --> 00:13:06.860 and Peter Mandelson. Right. They looked at Smith's 00:13:06.860 --> 00:13:09.419 strategy and considered it terribly timid. They 00:13:09.419 --> 00:13:11.019 were highly critical of it in private at the 00:13:11.019 --> 00:13:12.980 time, and they spoke out about it even more openly 00:13:12.980 --> 00:13:14.980 in the years that followed. They felt the party 00:13:14.980 --> 00:13:17.779 needed to actively transform its image and policies, 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:20.620 not just passively wait for the Tories to implode. 00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:22.919 But wasn't there any merit to just letting a 00:13:22.919 --> 00:13:25.840 failing government defeat itself? John Smith 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:28.159 was not without his defenders. There were people 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:30.440 who pushed back against this narrative that he 00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:33.220 was just sitting on his hands. Yes. Former cabinet 00:13:33.220 --> 00:13:35.899 minister and former labor deputy leader Roy Hattersley 00:13:35.899 --> 00:13:40.000 came out in 1997 and argued that one more heave 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:42.840 was a deeply unfair description of what Smith 00:13:42.840 --> 00:13:45.700 was actually trying to do. Hattersley's perspective 00:13:45.700 --> 00:13:48.980 provides crucial balance here. He stated that 00:13:48.980 --> 00:13:51.940 Smith absolutely was determined to modernize 00:13:51.940 --> 00:14:06.559 the party. How so? As Hattersley put it, Smith 00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:08.820 was looking for intellectual improvements, not 00:14:08.820 --> 00:14:11.639 ideological alternatives. He wanted to sharpen 00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:14.059 the existing tools, not throw out the toolbox 00:14:14.059 --> 00:14:16.840 entirely. But is intellectual improvement really 00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:19.200 enough when the voters have rejected you four 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:21.360 times in a row and are begging for a completely 00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:24.039 new direction? It's the classic debate between 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:26.899 steady evolution and radical revolution. But 00:14:26.899 --> 00:14:29.559 here is the ultimate what if of British political 00:14:29.559 --> 00:14:32.919 history. John Smith's one more heave strategy 00:14:32.919 --> 00:14:35.659 was never actually put to the test of a general 00:14:35.659 --> 00:14:38.100 election. Tragically, he died of a heart attack 00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:41.220 in May 1994. Yeah. In the subsequent leadership 00:14:41.220 --> 00:14:44.639 election, Tony Blair won. He and Gordon Brown 00:14:44.639 --> 00:14:47.320 completely overhauled and rebranded the party 00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:49.600 as New Labor, shifting heavily to the political 00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:52.460 center. And as we know, they went on to win a 00:14:52.460 --> 00:14:56.679 historic absolute landslide in the 1997 UK general 00:14:56.679 --> 00:14:58.639 election. Which leaves historians and political 00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:01.659 strategists constantly debating. With Smith's 00:15:01.659 --> 00:15:04.940 cautious approach have worked. Our source provide 00:15:04.940 --> 00:15:07.320 a really compelling retrospective verdict from 00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:09.539 a labor strategist named Peter Hyman, who wrote 00:15:09.539 --> 00:15:11.700 about this in his memoirs in 2005. What did he 00:15:11.700 --> 00:15:14.940 say? Hyman admitted that he could sense and actually 00:15:14.940 --> 00:15:17.759 shared the exasperation that the modernizers 00:15:17.759 --> 00:15:20.460 felt for Smith's one more heave strategy. He 00:15:20.460 --> 00:15:22.080 understood the frustration with the assumption 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:24.700 that if labor simply held tight and let the Tories 00:15:24.700 --> 00:15:26.799 collapse, they would win the next time around. 00:15:27.289 --> 00:15:29.470 But Hyman makes a really nuanced concession. 00:15:29.549 --> 00:15:31.750 He does. He writes, I think he was right. We 00:15:31.750 --> 00:15:33.950 would have won. So even a harsh critic of the 00:15:33.950 --> 00:15:36.250 strategy admits it likely would have resulted 00:15:36.250 --> 00:15:38.789 in an electoral victory for John Smith eventually. 00:15:39.350 --> 00:15:41.789 But Hyman follows that up with a critical caveat. 00:15:42.460 --> 00:15:44.460 He says that while Smith might have won a single 00:15:44.460 --> 00:15:47.320 election to sustain the party in power and to 00:15:47.320 --> 00:15:49.320 effectively lock out the Tories for a generation, 00:15:49.580 --> 00:15:52.200 that required what he called far more brutal 00:15:52.200 --> 00:15:54.500 changes. Winning one election by default because 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:56.860 the other guy stumbled is one thing. But reshaping 00:15:56.860 --> 00:15:58.940 the political landscape and building a lasting 00:15:58.940 --> 00:16:01.799 coalition requires something more than just waiting. 00:16:01.980 --> 00:16:05.220 It requires brutally reassessing your own identity. 00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:07.519 It really does. And what is amazing is that political 00:16:07.519 --> 00:16:11.259 commentators refuse to let this phrase die. Even 00:16:11.259 --> 00:16:14.059 today. echoes through British politics. The source 00:16:14.059 --> 00:16:16.220 notes that commentators frequently hurled the 00:16:16.220 --> 00:16:18.759 phrase at the Labour Party following the 2017 00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:22.179 UK general election. And we should spend a minute 00:16:22.179 --> 00:16:24.720 on this because it perfectly mirrors the 1974 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:27.419 liberal situation. It's a striking parallel. 00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:30.480 In 2017, Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn and 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:33.500 they unexpectedly surged, wiping out the conservative 00:16:33.500 --> 00:16:35.899 majority and creating another hung parliament. 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:40.240 Just like Jeremy Thorpe, in February 1974, Corbyn's 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:43.139 Labour Party significantly outperformed expectations. 00:16:43.779 --> 00:16:46.740 And almost immediately, critics noticed that 00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:50.059 the party apparatus adopted a distinct one more 00:16:50.059 --> 00:16:53.340 heave mentality. They assumed the momentum was 00:16:53.340 --> 00:16:55.600 permanent. Right. They believed that because 00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:58.320 they came so close in 2017, they simply needed 00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:00.919 to push the exact same platform a little harder 00:17:00.919 --> 00:17:03.059 in the next election. And just like the liberals 00:17:03.059 --> 00:17:06.059 in October 1974, that assumption proved fatal. 00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:09.319 When the next election happened in 2019, Labor 00:17:09.319 --> 00:17:11.839 suffered a massive defeat. The political landscape 00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:14.539 had shifted, but their strategy hadn't. No. The 00:17:14.539 --> 00:17:16.660 source also notes the phrase has been used to 00:17:16.660 --> 00:17:18.839 critique the early leadership style of Corbyn's 00:17:18.839 --> 00:17:21.299 successor, Keir Starmer. Whenever a political 00:17:21.299 --> 00:17:24.059 party seems to be relying on inertia or hoping 00:17:24.059 --> 00:17:25.839 that simply persisting with the current plan 00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:27.599 will eventually yield a different result because 00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:30.019 the governing party is unpopular, one more heave 00:17:30.019 --> 00:17:32.160 gets thrown right at them. If we connect this 00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:34.299 to the bigger picture, the reason this political 00:17:34.299 --> 00:17:37.000 phrase has survived for 50 years years is because 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:40.359 it targets a universal human flaw. It is a brilliant 00:17:40.359 --> 00:17:43.240 illustration of the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk 00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:45.759 cost fallacy, yeah. It is so much more comfortable 00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:48.119 for any of us, whether you are running a national 00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:51.140 political campaign, launching a startup, or even 00:17:51.140 --> 00:17:54.059 managing a team, to believe that just applying 00:17:54.059 --> 00:17:57.960 10 % more effort will fix everything. Admitting 00:17:57.960 --> 00:18:00.319 that the core strategy is broken is painful. 00:18:00.519 --> 00:18:03.339 It's the comfort of familiarity masked as perseverance. 00:18:04.059 --> 00:18:06.960 It's easier to say we just didn't push hard enough 00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:09.440 than it is to say we are pushing against the 00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:12.559 wrong wall entirely. Perfectly said. What this 00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:15.059 source material shows us, from Jeremy Thorpe's 00:18:15.059 --> 00:18:17.559 shattered ambitions in the 70s to the intense 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:20.559 internal warfare of labor in the 90s, is the 00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:23.420 profound danger of assuming that a structural 00:18:23.420 --> 00:18:26.059 ceiling is actually a floor for future growth. 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:29.319 Sometimes you don't need one more push. You need 00:18:29.319 --> 00:18:31.700 to look at the math, realize that an extra 5 00:18:31.700 --> 00:18:33.759 % effort won't get you where you need to be, 00:18:33.940 --> 00:18:36.559 and completely rewrite the playbook. The transition 00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:38.779 of the phrase itself is the real lesson here. 00:18:38.900 --> 00:18:41.319 It goes from a rallying cry of hopeful exertion 00:18:41.319 --> 00:18:44.339 in the 1970s to a cynical shorthand for intellectual 00:18:44.339 --> 00:18:47.319 laziness and strategic complacency in the 1990s 00:18:47.319 --> 00:18:50.839 and beyond. So what does this all mean? We started 00:18:50.839 --> 00:18:53.880 with a liberal campaign in 1974 aiming for the 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:56.920 stars with a catchy physical slogan. We watched 00:18:56.920 --> 00:18:59.259 that slogan shatter against the reality of the 00:18:59.259 --> 00:19:01.680 British electoral math and a voting system that 00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:05.240 punishes evenly spread support. We then saw the 00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:07.640 phrase resurrected decades later as a weapon. 00:19:08.190 --> 00:19:10.710 It was used to describe John Smith's cautious 00:19:10.710 --> 00:19:12.970 wait -and -see strategy against the conservatives, 00:19:13.109 --> 00:19:15.569 sparking a fierce debate about the soul of the 00:19:15.569 --> 00:19:17.970 Labor Party and whether opposition means waiting 00:19:17.970 --> 00:19:20.049 for your turn or actively reinventing yourself. 00:19:20.490 --> 00:19:23.009 Through it all, one more heave has transformed 00:19:23.009 --> 00:19:25.390 into a permanent warning label against political 00:19:25.390 --> 00:19:28.009 complacency. Which leaves us with a rather provocative 00:19:28.009 --> 00:19:30.130 thought based on the evolution of this strategy. 00:19:30.589 --> 00:19:32.769 We've spent this entire time dissecting why one 00:19:32.769 --> 00:19:35.230 more heave the act of stubbornly refusing to 00:19:35.230 --> 00:19:36.789 change your platform and just waiting for the 00:19:36.789 --> 00:19:40.289 other side to fail is a flawed, lazy strategy. 00:19:40.529 --> 00:19:43.869 But it leaves you wondering, in an era of modern, 00:19:43.970 --> 00:19:46.670 hyper -partisan, data -driven echo chambers, 00:19:46.930 --> 00:19:49.710 is the one more heave strategy actually making 00:19:49.710 --> 00:19:52.660 a comeback? When political parties increasingly 00:19:52.660 --> 00:19:55.180 only speak to their absolute most loyal base 00:19:55.180 --> 00:19:57.660 and swing voters become a mathematical rarity, 00:19:57.799 --> 00:19:59.819 maybe waiting for the other side's coalition 00:19:59.819 --> 00:20:02.839 to collapse isn't a failure of imagination anymore. 00:20:03.079 --> 00:20:05.220 That's a scary thought. Maybe in a polarized 00:20:05.220 --> 00:20:08.059 world where persuasion is dead, simply digging 00:20:08.059 --> 00:20:11.019 in your heels and waiting is the new math of 00:20:11.019 --> 00:20:13.339 modern elections. Now, that is a fascinating 00:20:13.339 --> 00:20:16.039 angle. If the whole world is polarized, maybe 00:20:16.039 --> 00:20:17.940 standing perfectly still is actually the most 00:20:17.940 --> 00:20:20.240 efficient play. Something to chew on the next 00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:23.160 time you watch a modern campaign unfold. We want 00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:25.380 to warmly thank you for joining us on this deep 00:20:25.380 --> 00:20:27.819 dive today. We hope it gave you that aha moment 00:20:27.819 --> 00:20:29.960 and a new way to think about the illusions of 00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:32.579 momentum. Keep questioning the information around 00:20:32.579 --> 00:20:34.339 you, and we will catch you on the next one.