The longest suicide note in history
"The longest suicide note in history" is an epithet originally used by Gerald Kaufman[1] to describe the United Kingdom Labour Party's left-wing 1983 election manifesto,[2] which called for unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Economic Community, abolition of the House of Lords and the re-nationalisation of recently de-nationalised industries like British Telecom, British Aerospace and the British Shipbuilding Corporation. Its far-left policies, along with the popularity gained by the current PM Margaret Thatcher over the Falklands War, contributed to an overwhelming victory for the incumbent Conservative party. This led to a turning point in the history of the party, which thereafter adopted more free market principles. The epithet referred not only to the orientation of the policies, but also to its marketing aspect. As a statement on internal democracy, party leader Michael Foot passed the edict that the manifesto would consist of all resolutions arrived at conference, making the manifesto over 700 pages long.
Other uses of the phrase
[edit | edit source]It has subsequently been used by Peter Gutmann in his paper "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection" to describe the Digital Rights Management schemes in the Windows Vista operating system.[3]
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ Mann, Nyta (2003-07-14). "Foot's message of hope to left". BBC News. Retrieved 2008-09-13.
- ↑ "The New Hope for Britain: British Labour Party election manifesto, 1983". Keele University Political Science Resources. 1983. Retrieved 2008-09-13.
- ↑ Template:Cite paper