Talk:List of United Kingdom general elections

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Old discussions[edit]

Merge with British Elections

stuff to be merged in with this article from British elections

General elections take place at least every five years on a first-past-the-post election system. But the actual date is chosen at the discretion of the current Prime Minister and elections are often held before the end of the five-year term. The five years runs from the first meeting of Parliament following the election.

The Prime Minister asks the Queen to dissolve Parliament by Royal Proclamation. The Proclamation the formal Writs of Election which require an election to be held. The election is held 17 working days after the date of the Proclamation.

Since 1935 every general election has been held on a Thursday. Of the 16 general elections between 1945 and 2001, four have been in October, four in June, three in May and two in February.

When all of the results are known, the Queen will usually invite the leader of the party winning the most seats in the House of Commons to be Prime Minister and to form a new Government. The second largest party becomes the Official Opposition. Any smaller parties are collectively known as the Opposition, even if they support the Government.

From the Electoral register (2000) there are 44,423,440 people registered to vote in the UK, 36,994,211 of them in England.

Above stuff has been merged in. Mintguy

List of Elections[edit]

I've converted the list of elections to a table - it seemed like dates and majorities would be useful, and it was too much info not to use a table. Is it OK? Any thoughts? --rbrwr

Eligibility (1)[edit]

"Anyone resident in the UK who is a citizen of the UK, the Republic of Ireland or of a Commonwealth country and is 18 or over on the date of the election is eligible to vote"...

Is this really true? I would be able to vote in a British election if I were there at the time? - Montréalais

Yup. Yippee. So could I as an Irish citizen. But you would have to be resident, ie have a residential address. You couldn't simply turn up on the day, wave your passport and say "I wanna vote ÉÍREman 00:12 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

True, but you only have to have a permanent address about two weeks before the election in order to be added to the electoral register, now that we've had rolling registration for a few years. It used to be that you had to be resident on a date in October to be added to the register that came into force the following February. Arwel 00:21 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

I was disappointed to find that I can't vote in Canadian elections despite being a resident. It seems a bit unfair that it only works one way. British subjects were allowed to at one time but not since 1975. Now you have to be a Canadian citizen, not just a resident. -- Derek Ross 00:54 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

Eligibility (2)[edit]

"UK citizens who have moved abroad remain eligible to vote for 15 years thereafter." -- can someone confirm this? It was 20 years at least until 1997, and I haven't heard it's been reduced, though it's true this was seen as advantaging the Conservatives as their supporters were thought more likely to emigrate. -- Arwel 21:15, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The Electoral Commission says 15. --rbrwr
(Over a year later) I should admit that the EC seems to be wrong: it's definitiely 20 years in the Representation of the People Act 2000 D'oh! Not reading my own sources! The change happened in 2001/2 according to the "Who can vote" factsheet that I linked earlier. --rbrwr± 20:24, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Gotcha. Section 141 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. --rbrwr± 20:46, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
...and I'm going to be pedantic here and admit that my edit summary (Overseas electors: 20 years -> 15 (comes into force for the next election, see talk)) is wrong. It has already come into force; the next general election (which is what we are discussing here, of course) will be the first general election at which it applies (assuming no further change is made before the election), though it is apparently already the case for by-elections. --rbrwr± 22:41, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fall of Thatcher, 1990[edit]

When Margaret Thatcher was deposed as leader of the Conservative Party in 1990, she lost her post as Prime Minister, and was succeeded by the winner of the contest for Conservative Party leader, John Major. No General Election was called, but did the Queen have a constitutional role here, or did Major simply inherit the office of Prime Minister as Thatcher's successor?

The Queen's role was limited basically to appointing the person who could command a majority in Parliament ie. the leader of the largest pary, who happened to be Major. - Chrism 14:54, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Formally, the Queen had to take her Prime Minister's advice, and Margaret Thatcher told her to appoint John Major. Thatcher could have gone on or suggested someone else, but she would have destroyed the Conservative government had she done so. Note that the dates here for elections are not the same as the dates in UK prime ministers, notably in February/March 1974]] where Edward Heath delayed resigning. --Henrygb 16:27, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


1945?[edit]

Out of curiosity, I would like to know why only the elections since 1945 are listed, when Wikipedia has articles on all elections since 1832? ...

Since I don't watch this page, it would be very nice if someone could reply on my talk page. Thanks! — Timwi 22:07, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Reason for voting[edit]

Most voters choose who to vote for based on the candidates' parties, rather than the personalities or opinions of the candidates.

Is this statement NPOV? --Biekko 15:56, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd say so - surveys, the nature of the campaign, and sheer common sense prove this. This is true in all cases. except of course Sedgefield and Howard's constituency... Transylvania, isn't it? (most DEFINATELY POV there)

Eligibility (3)[edit]

This anonymous edit from December was wrong, and I'm sorry I didn't spot it at the time. Irish and Commonwealth citizens can vote in UK parliamentary elections, for reasons explained in the Electoral Commission factsheet that I have added to the external links section: It is a legacy of the concept of "British Subject", which encompassed the whole Empire at the time of the 1918 Representation of the People Act. In fact, that might be worth explaining in the article... --rbrwr± 19:50, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hung Parliaments[edit]

I may be wrong, but I believe it is common practice to list minority parliaments as a negative majority, e.g. the 1929 election resulted in a majority of –42 because Labour was 42 seats off from forming a majority. I have updated the majority column in the list of Election Results since 1918 for the three Hung Parliaments since 1918 and added a note; if anyone has any corrections, feel free to make them. Thalion 00:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Has someone taken Churchill out 1940-1945?

I'm sure the numbers for 1923 are wrong - Labour wasn't even the largest party and was about 67 seats behind the Conservatives alone, let alone when the Liberals are taken into account. Does anyone have the full figures for that Parliament? Timrollpickering 20:36, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really accurate to describe in 1918 the Winning Party as the Liberals? The PM was liberal but he was head of a coalition government, who ran for realection as a coalition and was dominated by Conservatives (just as sheer numbers, and IMO in influence too). I'd have though N/A would be most appropriate since any vaguely accurate description can't fit in that box, or if we need to put something in the box "Coupon Coalition" would seem the most accurate since they did fight as a coalition (not just form it after the election like in 2010 for example)? If it needs to be a party in narrowly defined terms them perhaps "Conservatives, Liberal Prime Minister in Coalition" or something similar. Even Conservatives is more accurate that Liberals (who were the largest party and had a majority by themselves). A significant number of Liberals, under their official leader Asquith, lost the election dimally, whereas only a comparitively small number of Tories ran not on the Coupon compared to the vast majority who were on it. If nothing else it is odd what the majority column refers to (pressumably majority of the whole coalition who ran on the coupon, not of the Liberal Party) if you list Liberals as the winning party.

Table of Elections[edit]

Not really sure how to fix this, but given Wikipedia's habbit of always linking calendar years, I very nearly didn't notice that the years in the general election table are links to articles about those specific elections, and not just to the year articles... Roy Badami 23:11, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Votes cast[edit]

I'm a bit confused as to the figures quoted for votes etc in some of the older elections. In former times (before 1900 for sure) a large number of seats would have been uncontested. Rremember that a borough/county might return up to three members and as I understand it, from what I have read, if there were more than the requisite number of persons nominated to stand, and often there would be no additional challengers, a show of hands would first be taken, and a result declared on that basis. If one of the nominated persons objected to the result, a poll would result and then the votes would be counted. How is the vote for these constituencies managed in say the United_Kingdom_general_election,_1895 page? Is the vote for the entire electorate placed into the pot for the winning party or are they left out entirly? Jooler 23:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Normally in British election result tables no figure is included for votes in constituencies which have not gone to a poll, as no votes were cast in those areas. No real records were kept of the show of hands (which I presume was done up until the introduction of the secret ballot) but only of a poll if one was demanded.
I have a copy of the Constitutional Year Book 1900 where an attempt is made to include party support in uncontested constituencies, by crediting the party which won the seat with the whole registered electorate and adding that to the votes cast in other areas. I consider this a thoroughly flawed exercise, which produces no useful information. It is certainly not how modern results summaries are prepared. --Gary J 03:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds a total mess and I wonder how they would handle a situation in a two member constituency where local parties would agree to each nominate one only... Timrollpickering 14:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay the whole question of how to calculate the "votes cast" for a party in an election before 1950 is incredibly complicated. There are several different problems:

  1. It's not always clear which party a candidate was committed to supporting at the time of the election itself - many candidates were locally basically either independents or had local patronage that overrode considerations of which bit of the Commons they would sit in. Later when parties split the distinction was often lost at the local level, especially if a constituency did not have all the rival factions in it - a (relatively) recent example is the 1931 election when it was very hard for voters to tell what brand of Liberal their local candidate was.
  2. There's never been a universal method to calculate notional votes for uncontested seats. Some will allocate the total electorate to the candidate, some will give a proportion based on the average turnout, some try to allocate contested shares to uncontested and so forth, some leave it out altogether.
  3. Some past elections polled differently from modern practice. Voting was over several days and open and it was not unknown for candidates to see the writing on the wall and drop out before every last vote had been cast.
  4. The multi-member university constituencies used the Single Transferable Vote from 1918 to 1950. Because these were plural vote seats a lot of overall figures ignore them completely.
  5. (The biggest one.) The multi-member territorial constituencies present a real mess to calculate (similar problems exist with council elections to this day). Take the following example of a two member seat:
  • Gordon Brown (Labour) 46,000
  • Harriet Harman (Labour) 43,000
  • David Cameron (Conservative) 38,000
  • Theresa May (Conservative) 36,000

Turnout 82,000

Clearly not everyone who voted for Brown also did so for Harman, ditto Cameron & May. At least 1000 voters did not use both preferences and it's probable that these figures also include some votes for 1 Labour & 1 Conservative.

One can produce the following figures for the Labour vote:

  • a) 46,000 (top scoring candidate)
  • b) 44,500 (average of all candidates)
  • c) 44,500 (total vote for Labour divided by number of votes an individual elector could cast)
  • d) 89,000 (raw vote)

(The distinction between b) and c) makes no difference here, but in either limited vote elections or ones where parties run fewer candidates than available seats it can add to confusion.)

All of these methods have their drawbacks, and some produce totals that are more than the number of voters. But consider the following case where a single Liberal Democrat puts up:

  • Gordon Brown (Labour) 39,000
  • David Cameron (Conservative) 37,000
  • Harriet Harman (Labour) 35,000
  • Theresa May (Conservative) 31,000
  • Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) 20,000

Turnout 82,000

The Lib Dem vote here comes to:

  • a) 20,000
  • b) 20,000
  • c) 10,000
  • d) 20,000

Or if we get a "mixed ticket" whereby some parties agree to run one candidate each:

  • Gordon Brown (Labour) 39,000
  • David Cameron (Conservative) 35,000
  • Harriet Harman (Labour) 34,000
  • Theresa May (Conservative) 29,000
  • Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) 15,000
  • Darren Johnson (Green) 10,000

Turnout 82,000

Clearly there's some overlap on the Lib Dem & Green vote so to count it twice would confuse, as well as showing more votes cast than people voting.

(A real example of this kind of mess are most Dundee elections between 1923 and 1931 when Labour & the Prohibitionists ran one each in tandem, as did the Conservatives & Liberals, whilst the Communists ran a solitary candidate.)

Because of the confusing circumstances and multiple methods it's likely that the figures flying around differ from one another, and any table drawing on multiple sources would be mixed methodology. Has there been any modern study trying to tabulate all elections? Timrollpickering (talk) 17:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Prime Ministers in Parliaments[edit]

I am being a bit pedantic but the linkage of PMs to Parliaments is not complete. There were cases of appointments in the latter stages of a Parliament which have not bern caught by the existing list e.g. Balfour resigned in 1905 without advising a dissolution so Campbell-Bannerman's Premiership started in the 1900 Parliament (before he asked for a dissolution). I also noticed that Eden's Premiership started in the 1951 Parliament, but he is only included in the table for the 1955 Parliament.

I suppose I will have to compare the dates of PMs appointments to dates of dissolutions to catch all these instances. --Gary J 03:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And if you think that's messy, there were slight overlaps when incumbant parties lost elections. In modern times a defeated PM often resigns the next day, even while some seats are still counting, but go back 70 years or more and sometimes there would be a few more days - perhaps also because of the movements of the monarch and leader of the opposition. In the 19th century there was a convention (which Disraeli broke, though Salisbury reverted to) that governments lived and died in the Commons, not in the election that determined the composition, so sometimes a government would wait until the Commons had reassembled and let it be voted out of office. Also with more fragmented parties and unclear outcomes, it wasn't always clear who had actually "won" the election. Baldwin in 1923/1924 is the last case of this, although Edward Heath may have been trying to do similar in February 1974. Timrollpickering 14:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New/ex-electors[edit]

Is there any source for the number of new people to the electoral roll, and the number of people who fall off it? Preferably for the individual constituencies?

I don't mean simply the net change of people on the roll, but the raw numbers of how many new electors? Or how many left the electoral roll? It would also be useful to find the number of people voting who didn't last time.

I think this would be very useful in analysing changing vote patterns: for example it would shed light on whether Labour voters are switching to Liberal or whether the Liberal voters are primarily new voters and the Labour voters are staying at home. BillMasen 18:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Complete Election Results Needed[edit]

Election data is inadequate.

Complete election results are needed, with number voting for each party percentage voting for each and number of seats won by each party for every election for which data is available.

Dave Leip's site for US elections might be used as a model: 

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/

If there is an equivialant for Dave Leip's site for UK elections somewhere on the internet it should be linked.

NCDane (talk) 07:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)NCDane[reply]

Dates of elections are wrong[edit]

A lot of the pre-1918 dates are wrong. The 1910 (December) election, for example, certainly didn't take place in January 1911. Does anyone know why there's so many errors, and could someone correct it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.230.35 (talk) 02:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is because the pre-1918 dates are apparently the day on which the new parliament assembled. Pre-1918 elections were usually held over a couple of weeks (individual seats would have a single polling day but these would not all be held at the same time). You can see the date ranges for these elections in this handy House of Commons briefing note. The Grand Lunar (talk) 13:01, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Those not voting[edit]

The graph should also show those not voting at all; ie. the people that think that no party represents them.  SmokeyTheCat  •TALK• 16:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We have to rely on officially published figures and place none of our own interpretations on them. For example, there is no evidence that the people who don't vote "think that no party represents them". Of course there will probably be some non-voters that think that way, but we can't make generalisations of what all non-voters think.
If you have sourced data that provides turnout figures as well as voting figures then you are welcome to produce a graph and post it here for discussion. Road Wizard (talk) 17:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A count of the people who didn't vote will include those who have died, been imprisoned or moved away since the previous registration was taken (every October, comes into effect November, IIRC). Also it is not illegal not to register to vote, so the seriously disinclined can preclude themselves by not doing so. CS Miller (talk) 11:50, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Page name[edit]

Surely it should be called List of United Kingdom general elections? 93.96.236.8 (talk) 21:44, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved Kotniski (talk) 12:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]


United Kingdom general elections → List of United Kingdom general elections — This is what is currently stated in the lead, and better suits the content of this page. Information about UK general elections is covered more fully in another article, Elections in the United Kingdom. City of Destruction 22:29, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is also United Kingdom general elections overview. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:42, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I think that article should also probably be moved, though I'm not sure what it should be moved to. City of Destruction 01:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
These pages do need changing i think. If the present contents are to basically remain the same then i would support..
United Kingdom general elections overview > Overview of United Kingdom general elections since 1922
and your proposed move
United Kingdom general elections > List of United Kingdom general elections.
I would then make this page a sort of dab page (not sure if it could be labelled one) but a page that basically gives people the links to the above 2 mentioned articles and Elections in the UK page, as well as the previous general election and the upcoming general election. If i typed in United Kingdom general election i may be looking for the most recent / upcoming one, rather than a list of all elections. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:28, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

1923[edit]

The majority given for MacDonald's Labour is -98; however this is the figure for Baldwin's Conservatives after the election. The majority for the Labour government that replaced them was an even less impressive -232! Kmitch87 (talk) 17:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Negative Majority[edit]

"Note: A negative majority means that there was a hung parliament (or minority parliament) following that election. For example, in the 1929 election, Labour was 42 seats short of forming a majority, and so its majority is listed as −42."

This is incorrect, Labour's majority is listed as -42 because it fell 21 seats short of a majority: if they're not for you, they're agin you. Then again, maths tells me it should be -41 with the Conservative Speaker increasing it to -40.Kmitch87 (talk) 17:53, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question[edit]

Why not "List of British general elections"? — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 16:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Prime Ministers in Parliaments[edit]

Following the 2006/7 discussion, I have added: -

1. Salisbury to the end of the 1880 Parliament (his 1885-6 ministry)

2. Salisbury to the beginning and end of the 1892 Parliament (he met he Commons at the start of it, and advised its dissolution).

3. Campbell-Bannerman to the end of the 1900 Parliament (he advised its dissolution).

4. Bonar Law to the end of the 1918 Parliament (he advised its dissolution).

5. Baldwin to the beginning of the 1923 Parliament (he met he Commons at the start of it). Alekksandr (talk) 18:40, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Majorities[edit]

I feel that it is best to only give this figure for the first government formed after an election. E.g. it seems strange to record Churchill's 1945 caretaker Conservative Government as having the exact same majority as Baldwin's 1935 National Government, despite all the intervening by-elections. The source cited, Rallings and Thrasher, only gives the initial majority. I therefore propose to amend the page accordingly. Alekksandr (talk) 21:19, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, a lot of the figures are slightly out from those in the sources. E.g. in 1979, Rallings & Thrasher's 'British Electoral Facts' and Butler & Butler's 'British Political Facts' both give the Conservatives 339, Labour 269, Liberals 11, and others 16. Speaker George Thomas, who had previously been a Labour MP, is counted as part of the Labour total. Rallings and Thrasher give a Conservative majority of 44. 'The Speaker has been excluded when calculating the majority'. This wikipedia page gives the Conservatives a majority of 43 - presumably including the Speaker in the 'opposition' camp. However, as the Speaker never votes (either for or against the government) except to break a tie, I feel that the page should reflect the sources.

Likewise, in 1997, Rallings & Thrasher give Labour 418, the Conservatives 165, the LibDems 46 and others including the Speaker 30. They give a Labour majority of 178. Again 'The Speaker has been excluded when calculating the majority'. However, this wikipedia page gives Labour a majority of 179, presumably including Speaker Betty Boothroyd, who had previously been a Labour MP, in the 'government' camp. Once again, I feel that this page should refelct the sources. Alekksandr (talk) 23:28, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is the sources are not always in agreement with each other. Some MPs in earlier years walked a fine line between an independent who generally sympathised with the government and a semi-detached party member, and that's before you get to the mess of constituency organisations, and it's not always easy to tell which was which at a distance. The general histories and contemporary media also use their own figures - 179 has been in use since the day after the 1997 election. I think we'd need to hammer down which sources take precedence first or else we'll get endless changes as everyone "corrects" articles and makes them (in)consistent with one another. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:22, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I note that the page states 'The majority figure given is for the difference between the number of MPs elected at the general election from the party (or parties) of the government, as opposed to all other parties (some of which may have been giving some support to the government, but were not participating in a coalition). The Speaker is excluded from the calculation. ...Source for majority calculations up to 1999: British Electoral Facts 1832-1999, compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Ashgate 2000)' The page's figures agree with that source (in cases where the source gives a figure) until 1918. For that year the page gives a majority of 238, and the source 283. Both then agree until and including 1935. From 1945 onwards the figures are always one out, except in 1983 and 1992. I feel that, if the page cites Rallings and Thrasher, it should follow their figures. Alekksandr (talk) 20:28, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unseated[edit]

I don't understand the column heading Unseated but the figures match those for Unopposed - i.e. MPs elected to a seat without a contest from another candidate. I would change all these headings from 1885 to 1950 in the UK. From 1951, all parliamentary seats have been contested in general elections. --Gepid (talk) 08:03, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Table layout is confusing[edit]

Some of the cells have multi-line entries that appear to be intended to align with other multi-line entries in adjacent cells. However, because of line-wrapping they do not align, and the result is visually confusing. 109.157.11.203 (talk) 20:24, 31 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2015 Majority[edit]

Conservatives had majority of 12 in 2015? On election page it says 330 seats. That is majority 5. May said in 2017 "If I lose six seats I lose." Where did 12 come from? ----


It is a majority of 12. May said she loses if she loses 6, because those 6 would go to Labour and the majority would disappear. Its not how many more seats you have than the half way point, its how many more you have that all the other parties combined.

--2A00:23C4:6CAD:3100:9D27:EBC9:6FE4:2154 (talk) 23:30, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is the shading of the elections supposed to represent?[edit]

It doesn't seem to represent party, or monarch, or anything else. What information is this supposed to convey, and why is it not clearly labeled? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.108.103 (talk) 03:25, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Sir" title[edit]

Many of the prime ministers who were knighted at some point are listed as "Sir [insert name]", even in cases where they hadn't yet been knighted at the time (e.g. Churchill in 1940), and others with knighthoods have the "Sir" designation missing (e.g. Major, Blair). I think for consistency it would be better if all the "Sirs" were removed, as is the case in the article List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom. Mark and inwardly digest (talk) 17:33, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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