Misplaced Pages

February 1974 United Kingdom general election in England

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
February 1974 United Kingdom general election in England
← 1970 28 February 1974 October 1974 →
← outgoing memberselected members →
All 516 English seats in the House of Commons
259 seats needed for English majority
  First party Second party Third party
  Harold Wilson 1975.jpg Golda Meir and Edward Heath cropped (cropped).jpg Lib
Leader Harold Wilson Edward Heath Jeremy Thorpe
Party Labour Conservative Liberal
Leader since 14 February 1963 28 July 1965 18 January 1967
Leader's seat Huyton Sidcup North Devon
Last election 216 seats, 43.4% 292 seats, 48.3% 2 seats, 7.9%
Seats won 237 268 9
Seat change Increase21 Decrease24 Increase7
Percentage 37.7% 40.2% 21.3%
Swing Decrease5.7% Decrease8.1% Increase13.4%

The February 1974 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 28 February 1974 to elect 635 members of the House of Commons, of which 523 constituencies were in England.

While in the House of Commons, there emerged a hung parliament with the Labour Party winning 301 seats to the 297 won by the Conservative Party, in England, the Conservatives won 268 seats to Labour's 237.

The Labour Party led by former prime minister Harold Wilson formed a minority government on 4 March 1974 after the incumbent Conservative government led by Prime Minister Edward Heath failed to form a coalition government with the Liberal Party led by Jeremy Thorpe .

As no party commanded a majority, a second general election was held in October in which the Labour Party gained a wafer-thin majority in the House of Commons. However, even in that election, Labour failed to win a majority of seats in England- it won just two seats more than the defeated Conservatives.

Result Table

Party Seats won Net change in seats Total votes (in millions) Voteshare Change in voteshare
Conservative 268 Decrease24 10.51 40.2% Decrease8.1%
Labour 237 Increase21 9.84 37.7% Decrease5.7%
Liberal 9 Increase7 5.57 21.3% Increase13.4%
Parliament seats
Conservative   51.93%
Labour   45.93%
Liberal   1.74%

References

  1. Espley, Richard (2021). University Special Collections (UK): Senate House Library. Pelham House, Pelhams Court, London Road, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2AG, United Kingdom: Adam Matthew Digital.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)

General references

  1. Pilling, Sam; Cracknell, Richard (18 August 2021). "UK Election Statistics: 1918-2021: A Century of Elections" (PDF). House of Commons Library.
  2. 28 February 1974", BBC Politics 97
  3. Clark, George (1974). "The 'Inevitable' Election". The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1974. London: Times Newspapers Limited. p. 28
  4. Butler, David; Kavanagh, Dennis (1974), The British General Election of February 1974
Categories: