After being in power for eight years already, the Conservatives were not content to rest on what they believed were their achievements.

Eager to appear not to be running out of steam, the Tory manifesto was entitled The Next Moves Forward. It promised to spread home ownership and share ownership more widely than ever before.

More state owned industries would be "returned to the people" via privatisation and Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent would be maintained.

Defence was, for Labour, a real problem at this election.

The party was still committed to cancelling the new Trident nuclear weapons system, but coming up with a credible alternative was difficult.

This was something Neil Kinnock found when he seemed to say that Labour’s defence policy would amount to making any Soviet occupation of the UK "totally untenable".

The party also promised to reduce employment by one million in two years as well as restoring the earnings link to state pensions.

The Alliance, in its manifesto, Britain United: The Time has Come, set out the idea of the Great Reform Charter

This argued that voting reform in the shape of proportional representation would equip the UK with consensus governments, better able - it thought - to tackle the nation’s problems.