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The United Kingdom is a unitary state with devolution that is governed within the framework of a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, is the head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Boris Johnson, is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the British government, on behalf of and by the consent of the monarch, and the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. The British political system is a two party system. Since the 1920s, the two dominant parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics, the Liberal Party was the other major political party, along with the Conservatives. While coalition and minority governments have been an occasional feature of parliamentary politics, the first-past-the-post electoral system used for general elections tends to maintain the dominance of these two parties, though each has in the past century relied upon a third party, such as the Liberal Democrats, to deliver a working majority in Parliament. A Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government held office from 2010 until 2015, the first coalition since 1945. The coalition ended following parliamentary elections on 7 May 2015, in which the Conservative Party won an outright majority of seats, 330 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, while their coalition partners lost all but eight seats.
The 1979 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons.
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of the Labour Party in 1945, with a majority of 144 seats.
The 1987 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The election was the third consecutive general election victory for the Conservative Party, and second landslide under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the Earl of Liverpool in 1820 to lead a party into three successive electoral victories.
The February 1974 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 28 February 1974. The Labour Party, led by Leader of the Opposition and former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, gained 14 seats, but was seventeen short of an overall majority. The Conservative Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Edward Heath, lost 28 seats; but achieved a higher share of the vote than Labour. This resulted in a hung parliament, the first since 1929. Heath resigned when he refused to a key term of a possible coalition, and Wilson became Prime Minister for a second time, his first under a minority government. Because Labour was unable to form a majority coalition with another party, Wilson called another early election in September, which was held in October and resulted in a Labour majority. This was also the first general election to be held with the United Kingdom as a member state of the European Communities (EC)—widely known as the "Common Market".
The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held twenty months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats. The Labour government called a snap election for Thursday 25 October 1951 in the hope of increasing its parliamentary majority. However, despite winning the popular vote and achieving both the highest-ever total vote and highest percentage vote share, Labour won fewer seats than the Conservative Party. This election marked the return of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister, and the beginning of Labour's thirteen-year spell in opposition. This was the final general election to be held with George VI as monarch, as he died the following year on 6 February and was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II. This was also the last election in which the Conservatives did better in Scotland than in England.
The 1959 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 8 October 1959. It marked a third consecutive victory for the ruling Conservative Party, now led by Harold Macmillan. For the second time in a row, the Conservatives increased their overall majority in Parliament, this time to a landslide majority of 100 seats, having gained 20 seats for a return of 365. The Labour Party, led by Hugh Gaitskell, lost 19 seats and returned 258. The Liberal Party, led by Jo Grimond, again returned only six MPs to the House of Commons, but managed to increase its overall share of the vote to 5.9%, compared to just 2.7% four years earlier.
The 2005 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 5 May 2005, to elect 646 members to the House of Commons. The Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, won its third consecutive victory, with Blair becoming the second Labour leader after Harold Wilson to form three majority governments. However, its majority fell to 66 seats compared to the 167-seat majority it had won four years before. This was the first time the Labour Party had won a third consecutive election, and remains the party's most recent general election victory.
The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010, with 45,597,461 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom under the first-past-the-post system.
The Scottish Conservatives, officially the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party that operates in Scotland. It is the second-largest party in the Scottish Parliament and Scottish local government. The party has the second largest number of Scottish MPs in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
Wednesbury was a borough constituency in England's Black Country which returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1868 until it was abolished for the February 1974 general election.
Norman Pentland was a British Labour Member of Parliament.
The Newport by-election, 1956 was a parliamentary by-election held on 6 July 1956 for the British House of Commons constituency of Newport in Monmouthshire.
Patrick Bartley was a British coal miner, civil servant and politician. He served as Labour Party Member of Parliament for Chester-le-Street from 1950 until his early death.
There was a by-election for Dundee East, in Scotland, on 1 March 1973. It was one of three UK parliamentary by-elections held on that day. It was caused by the appointment of George Thomson as a European commissioner. George Machin retained the seat for Labour, but only narrowly. There was a strong showing by the Scottish National Party, which prefigured their serious breakthrough at the Govan by-election later in the year, and the two general elections of 1974.
The Chester-le-Street by-election, 1973 was a parliamentary by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Chester-le-Street on 1 March 1973.
A byelection was held in the Oldham constituency in 1911 to fill a vacancy in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
These are the results of the 1997 United Kingdom general election in Scotland. The election was held on 1 May 1997 and all 72 seats in Scotland were contested. This would be the last UK general election to be contested in Scotland before the Scottish Parliament was reconvened on 1 July 1999 following overwhelming public approval in a referendum.
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and, as of 2022, the only general election held at the end of a fixed-term Parliament. Local elections took place in most areas on the same day.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019. It resulted in the Conservative Party receiving a landslide majority of 80 seats. The Conservatives made a net gain of 48 seats and won 43.6% of the popular vote – the highest percentage for any party since 1979.
References
- ↑ The Times, 13 September 1956, p6
- ↑ The Times, 21 September 1956, p4
- ↑ The Times, 26 September 1956, p6
- ↑ "1956 By Election Results". Archived from the original on 10 October 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2015.