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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
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
"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)
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)
"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)
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?
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)
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)
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)
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?
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.
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)
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)
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:
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:
(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:
Turnout 82,000
The Lib Dem vote here comes to:
Or if we get a "mixed ticket" whereby some parties agree to run one candidate each:
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)
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)
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
Surely it should be called List of United Kingdom general elections? 93.96.236.8 (talk) 21:44, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved Kotniski (talk) 12:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
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)
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)
"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)
Why not "List of British general elections"? — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 16:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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? ----
--2A00:23C4:6CAD:3100:9D27:EBC9:6FE4:2154 (talk) 23:30, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
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)