Editing Edward Heath (section)

===Trade unions===
Much of the government's attention, as well as the media and public opinion, focused on deteriorating labour relations, as the government sought to weaken the economic power of the trade unions, which had grown steadily since 1945. The [[Industrial Relations Act 1971]] set up a special court under the judge [[John Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Lymington|Lord Donaldson]]. Its imprisonment of striking dockworkers was a public relations disaster and became an object lesson for the Thatcher government of the 1980s. Thatcher relied instead on confiscating the assets of unions that courts found to have violated anti-strike laws.

The trade unions responded with a full-scale counterattack on a government hobbled by inflation and high unemployment. Especially damaging to the government's credibility were the two miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974, the latter of which resulted in much of the country's industry working a [[Three-Day Week]] in an attempt to conserve energy. The [[National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain)|National Union of Mineworkers]] won its case but the energy shortages and the resulting breakdown of domestic consensus contributed to the eventual downfall of his government.