Editing Edward Heath (section)

==Leader of the Opposition (1965–1970)==

=== Party leadership ===
{{See also|First Shadow Cabinet of Edward Heath}}
{{Multiple image
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 | image1    = 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.jpg
 | alt1      = Heath and Robert McNamara
 | caption1  = Heath at [[the Pentagon]] with US {{not a typo|defense}} secretary [[Robert McNamara]] in 1966
 | image2    = Golda Meir and Edward Heath.jpg
 | alt2      = Heath and Golda Meir
 | caption2  = Heath with Israeli prime minister [[Golda Meir]] in 1969
}}

After the Conservative Party lost the [[1964 United Kingdom general election|general election of 1964]], the defeated Home changed the party leadership rules to allow for a ballot by MPs and then, in July 1965, he resigned. 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 [[1965 Conservative Party leadership election|party's leadership contest]], gaining 150 votes to [[Reginald Maudling]]'s 133 and [[Enoch Powell]]'s 15.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/27/newsid_2956000/2956082.stm |title=Heath is new Tory leader |work=BBC News |date=27 July 1996 |access-date=20 April 2010}}</ref> Heath became the Conservatives' youngest leader and retained office following the party's defeat in the [[1966 United Kingdom general election|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.<ref>{{cite book |title=Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell |last=Heffer |first=Simon |year=1999 |page=466}}</ref> According to Heath, he never spoke to Powell again.<ref>Heath, Edward. ''The Course of My Life'' (1998), p. 293<!-- ISSN/ISBN, publisher needed --></ref>

=== 1970 election ===
With another general election approaching in 1970 a Conservative policy document emerged from the [[Selsdon Park Hotel]] that offered free-market–oriented policies as solutions to the country's unemployment and inflation problems.<ref>Young, Hugo. ''One Of Us'' London: MacMillan, 1989.</ref> Heath stated that the Selsdon weekend only reaffirmed policies that had actually been evolving since he became leader of the Conservative Party. The Labour prime minister, [[Harold Wilson]], thought the document a vote-loser and dubbed it the product of ''[[Selsdon Man]]'' – after the supposedly prehistoric ''[[Piltdown Man]]''<ref>{{cite book|last=Green|first=Jonathan|title=Dictionary of Jargon|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=1987|page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofjarg00jona/page/482 482]|isbn=978-0-7100-9919-8|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofjarg00jona/page/482}}</ref> – to portray it as reactionary. Heath's Conservative Party won the [[1970 United Kingdom general election|general election of 1970]] with 330 seats to Labour's 287. The new cabinet included the future prime minister Margaret Thatcher (Education and Science), [[William Whitelaw]] (Leader of the House of Commons) and the former prime minister [[Alec Douglas-Home]] (Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs).<ref>Ziegler, ''Edward Heath'' (2010), ch. 12.</ref>