October 1974 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

October 1974 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

←  Feb. 1974 10 October 1974 1979  →
←  outgoing members elected members  →
All 71 Scottish seats to the House of Commons
Turnout	74.81%, 4.05%
First party Second party   Leader Harold Wilson Edward Heath Party Labour Conservative Leader since 14 February 1963 28 July 1965 Last election 40 seats, 36.6% 21 seats, 32.9% Seats won 41 16 Seat change 1 5 Popular vote 1,000,581 681,327 Percentage 36.3% 24.7% Swing 0.3% 8.2%   Third party Fourth party   SNP Liberal Leader William Wolfe Jeremy Thorpe Party SNP Liberal Leader since 1 June 1969 18 January 1967 Last election 7 seats, 21.9% 3 seats, 7.9% Seats won 11 3 Seat change 4 Popular vote 839,617 228,855 Percentage 30.4% 8.3% Swing 8.5% 0.4%
Results of the Oct. 1974 election in Scotland

Main article: October 1974 United Kingdom general election

A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday 10 October 1974 and all 71 seats in Scotland were contested. ^{[1] [2]} This election was held just seven months after the previous general election, held in February 1974, had led to a hung parliament. Following the inconclusive nature of coalition talks between the Conservatives and other parties such as the Liberals and the Ulster Unionists, the Labour Leader Harold Wilson had gone on to form a minority government. After 8 months, Wilson felt he had demonstrated enough progress to win a majority, and called a second election.

In Scotland the Conservatives saw an 8.2% drop in support, and lost 5 seats. Although the Labour Party also saw a slight decline in vote share, it was able to pick up one additional seat. The SNP became the second largest party in Scotland by popular vote for the first time in its history: with 30% of the Scottish popular vote and 11 of Scotland's 71 seats this was the party's most successful general election result until the 2015 election.

When combined with results from across the United Kingdom the election resulted in Labour winning a wafer-thin majority of three seats, the narrowest in modern British history.

MPs

List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (October 1974–1979)

Results

Party		Seats [2]	Seats change	Votes [2]	%	% change
	Labour	41	1	1,000,581	36.3	0.3
	Conservative	16	5	681,327	24.7	8.2
	SNP	11	4	839,617	30.4	8.5
	Liberal	3		228,855	8.3	0.4
	Communist	0		7,453	0.3	0.2
	National Front	0		86	0.0	N/A
	Other	0		182	0.0
Turnout:				2,758,101	74.81

Votes summary

Popular vote Labour   36.28% SNP   30.44% Conservative   24.70% Liberal   8.30% Other   0.28%

Parliamentary seats Labour   57.75% Conservative   22.54% SNP   15.49% Liberal   4.23%

References

1. "Commons results report" (PDF).
2. Colin Rallings; Micheal Thrasher (2006). British Electoral Facts. Total Politics. p. 46. ISBN   978-1-907278-03-7.