The 2001 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 7 June 2001, four years after the previous election on 1 May 1997, to elect 659 members to the House of Commons. The governing Labour Party led by the prime minister Tony Blair was re-elected to serve a second term in government with another landslide victory with a 167-seat majority, returning 412 members of Parliament versus 418 from the 1997 general election, a net loss of six seats, though with a significantly lower turnout than before—59.4%, compared to 71.6% at the previous election.
The Conservative and Unionist Party, commonly the Conservative Party and colloquially known as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election, and has been the primary governing party in the United Kingdom since 2010. The party sits on the right-wing to centre-right of the political spectrum. It encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. The party holds the annual Conservative Party Conference, at which senior Conservative figures promote party policy.
The 1997 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 1 May 1997. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister John Major was defeated in a landslide by the opposition Labour Party led by Tony Blair, achieving a 179-seat majority and a total of 418 seats, the highest ever won by Labour as of June 2024. It remains the most recent election in which a party won an overall majority from opposition.
The 1992 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 April 1992, to elect 651 members to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister John Major won majority of 21, and would be the last time that the Conservatives would win an overall majority at a general election until 2015. It was also the last general election to be held on a day which did not coincide with any local elections until 2017. This election result took many by surprise, as opinion polling leading up to the election day had shown a narrow but consistent lead for the Labour Party under leader Neil Kinnock.
David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton, is a British politician who has served as Foreign Secretary since 2023. He previously served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016, Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016, and Leader of the Opposition from 2005 to 2010, while he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016. Cameron identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies.
Edward Samuel Miliband is a British politician who has been Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since 2021, in the Shadow Cabinet of Keir Starmer. He is Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition between 2010 and 2015. Alongside his brother, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, he served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010, to elect Members of Parliament to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom under the first-past-the-post system. The election resulted in a large swing to the opposition Conservative Party led by David Cameron similar to that seen in 1979, the last time a Conservative opposition had ousted a Labour government. The governing Labour Party led by the prime minister Gordon Brown lost the 66-seat majority it had previously enjoyed, but no party achieved the 326 seats needed for a majority. The Conservatives won the most votes and seats, but still fell 20 seats short. This resulted in a hung parliament where no party was able to command a majority in the House of Commons. This was only the second general election since the Second World War to return a hung parliament, the first being the February 1974 election. This election marked the start of Conservative government for the next 14 years.
Stewart James Jackson, Baron Jackson of Peterborough is a British politician and adviser. Jackson served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Peterborough from 2005 to 2017. After being ousted by Labour's Fiona Onasanya at the 2017 general election, he served as Chief of Staff, and Special Adviser to David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, until July 2018 when Davis resigned his position. He was made a member of the House of Lords as a life peer in November 2022.
Grant Shapps is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Defence since August 2023. Shapps has previously served in various cabinet posts, including Conservative Party Co-Chairman, Transport Secretary, Home Secretary, Business Secretary, and Energy Secretary under Prime Ministers David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Welwyn Hatfield from 2005 to 2024.
Gordon Brown's term as the prime minister of the United Kingdom began on 27 June 2007 when he accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Tony Blair, and ended on 11 May 2010 upon his resignation. As prime minister, Brown served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury and as Minister for the Civil Service. He and Blair both extensively used the New Labour branding while in office, though Brown's style of government differed from that of his predecessor. As of June 2024, Brown is the most recent Labour Party prime minister and the most recent not to be from England.
Chuka Harrison Umunna is a British businessman and former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham from 2010 until 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, he was part of the Shadow Cabinet from 2011 to 2015. He left Labour in February 2019, when he resigned to form The Independent Group, later Change UK, along with six other MPs. Later in 2019, he left Change UK and, after a short time as an independent MP, joined the Liberal Democrats. In the 2019 general election, he failed to be re-elected, and did not return to the House of Commons.
The David Davis by-election campaign of 2008 was a political campaign against the erosion of civil liberties in the United Kingdom, led by the former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), David Davis, labelled by Davis as the David Davis For Freedom campaign.
The United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, also known as the UK-wide referendum on the Parliamentary voting system was held on Thursday 5 May 2011 in the United Kingdom to choose the method of electing MPs at subsequent general elections. It occurred as a provision of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement drawn up in 2010 and also indirectly in the aftermath of the 2009 expenses scandal. It operated under the provisions of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 and was the first national referendum to be held under provisions laid out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Many local elections were also held on this day.
David Cameron's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 11 May 2010 when he accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, and ended on 13 July 2016 upon his resignation following the 2016 referendum that favoured Brexit, which he had opposed. As prime minister, Cameron served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury and as Minister for the Civil Service.
The events surrounding the formation of the United Kingdom's government in 2010 took place between 7 May and 12 May 2010, following the 2010 general election, which failed to produce an overall majority for either of the country's two main political parties. The election, held on 6 May, resulted in the first hung parliament in the UK in 36 years, sparking a series of negotiations which would form the first coalition government since the Second World War.
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 7 May 2015 to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. It was the only general election to be held under the rules of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and was the last general election to be held before the United Kingdom voted to end its membership of the European Union (EU) in June 2016. Local elections took place in most areas of England on the same day and is to date the most recent general election to coincide with local elections. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister, David Cameron, won an unexpected victory; opinion polls and political commentators had predicted that the results of the election would cause a second consecutive hung parliament whose composition would be similar to the previous Parliament, which was in effect from the previous national election in 2010. However, opinion polls underestimated the Conservatives, as they won 330 of the 650 seats and 36.9 per cent of the votes, giving them a majority of ten seats.
Various newspapers, organisations and individuals endorsed parties or individual candidates for the 2015 general election
The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister Theresa May remained the largest single party in the House of Commons but lost its small overall majority, resulting in the formation of a Conservative minority government with a confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019, with 47,567,752 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6 per cent of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 general election, though with a narrower popular vote margin than that achieved by the Labour Party over the Conservatives at the 1997 general election. This was the second national election to be held in 2019 in the United Kingdom, the first being the 2019 European Parliament (EP) election.
Various newspapers, organisations and individuals endorsed parties or individual candidates for the 2024 United Kingdom general election.
