The Tory government called a snap election with just a few weeks’ notice. It was a time of national crisis; the government had a small majority, and wanted to give itself room to manoeuvre. Its campaign warned that the left-wing Labour opposition would take money from voters’ pockets. But the gamble backfired badly – the Conservatives' vote slumped, their majority vanished, and Labour was resurgent.

But this was not June 2017, it was February 1974; the Tory leader was Edward Heath, and his Labour opponent Harold Wilson.

Four decades before Theresa May threw away her majority in an unnecessary election, Britain went through a tumultuous few years of minority government, political uncertainty, and endless horsetrading over votes to keep the country running. The parallels between that period and the new political reality of 2017 offer a stark illustration of the difficulties of surviving as a government that can’t control the House of Commons.

At the February 1974 election, Wilson’s Labour became the largest party, although he lacked the seats to form a majority even in coalition with the Liberals. Labour tried to govern as a minority, but to no one’s surprise it couldn’t get anything very much done. A second election was soon called, in October that year, from which Labour scraped a majority of just three seats.