1966 United Kingdom general election in England

1966 United Kingdom general election in England

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All 511 English seats in the House of Commons 256 seats needed for English majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader Harold Wilson Edward Heath Jo Grimond Party Labour Conservative Liberal Leader since 14 February 1963 28 July 1965 5 November 1956 Leader's seat Huyton Bexley Orkney and Shetland Last election 246 seats, 43.5% 262 seats, 44.1% 3 seats, 12.1% Seats won 285 219 6 Seat change 39 43 3 Popular vote 10,886,408 9,692,356 2,036,793 Percentage 48.0% 42.7% 9.0% Swing 4.5 pp 1.4 pp 3.1 pp

The 1966 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 31 March 1966 to elect 630 members of the House of Commons, of which 511 constituencies were in England.

The incumbent Labour Party led by Prime Minister Harold Wilson won 285 seats in England, its second-highest tally of seats at the time. On the other hand, the Conservative Party led by Edward Heath won only 216 seats, its lowest share of seats since the 1945 election. It was also only the second time that the Labour Party had won more seats than the Conservatives in England.

It was the only election between 1945 and 1997 in which the Labour Party won a majority of seats in England. Concurrently, this was the only election between 1945 and 1997 in which the Labour Party got a working majority in the House of Commons sufficient to last a full term in office. (In 1950, 1964 and October 1974, the Labour majority was 5, 4 and 3 seats respectively.)

Result Table

Party	Seats won	Net change in seats	Total votes	Voteshare	Change in voteshare
Labour	285	39	10,886,408	48.0%	4.5%
Conservative	219	43	9,692,356	42.7%	1.4%
Liberal	6	3	2,036,793	9.0%	3.1%

Parliament seats Labour   55.77% Conservative   42.85% Liberal   1.17%

References

1. Pilling, Sam; Cracknell, Richard (18 August 2021). "UK Election Statistics: 1918-2021: A Century of Elections" (PDF). House of Commons Library.
2. Thorpe, Andrew (1997). A History of the British Labour Party
3. Butler, David E., and Anthony King. The British General Election of 1966 (1966)
4. Bromhead, Peter. "The General Election of 1966". Parliamentary Affairs 19.3 (1966): 332–345.