An example of a voluntary incomes policy in the UK was the ‘social contract’ introduced by the Labour government in 1974. In exchange for wage restraint, the government pledged itself to a range of policies. The main problem with a voluntary policy is that it cannot be enforced and although the social contract continued for four years it finally fell in the ‘winter of discontent’ of 1978/79. In 1979, there was the election of a Conservative government headed by Margaret Thatcher which did not believe in government intervention. During the 1980s and 1990s, there were no formal prices and incomes policies in the UK but successive governments controlled wages in the public sector and called for voluntary restraint over wages in the private sector