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 United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy where executive power is delegated by legislation and social conventions to a unitary parliamentary democracy. From this a hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Rishi Sunak since 2022, serves as the elected head of government.
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.
John Smith was a Scottish politician who was Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death in May 1994. He was also Member of Parliament (MP) for Monklands East.
William Jefferson Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond, is a British politician and life peer who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2001. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond (Yorks) in North Yorkshire from 1989 to 2015. He was in the Cameron government as First Secretary of State from 2010 to 2015, Foreign Secretary from 2010 to 2014, and Leader of the House of Commons from 2014 to 2015.
Michael Andrew Foster Jude Kerr, 13th Marquess of Lothian, Baron Kerr of Monteviot,, commonly known as Michael Ancram, is a Scottish politician and peer who served as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party from 2001 to 2005. He was formerly styled Earl of Ancram until he inherited the marquessate in 2004.
David John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.
In British politics, a Lib–Lab pact is a working arrangement between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party.
Timothy William George Collins, CBE is a British politician, once a prominent member of the Conservative Party. Collins was active in the 1990s and was later the Member of Parliament (MP) for Westmorland and Lonsdale in north-west England from 1997 until his defeat at the 2005 general election by Tim Farron, later leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Robert Douglas Nicholson is a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Niagara Falls in the House of Commons of Canada from 2004 to 2019 as a member of the Conservative Party. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he served as Minister of National Defence, Minister of Justice, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. When the Harper Government ended, he was appointed Justice Critic in the Official Opposition shadow cabinet.
The 2005 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 5 May 2005, to elect 646 members to the House of Commons. The governing Labour Party led by the prime minister, 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; the majority it won four years earlier had been of 167 seats. This was the first time the Labour Party had won a third consecutive election. The Liberal Democrats won seats for the third time in a row, and scored the highest Liberal seat number since World War II. As of the 2024 general election this is the last Labour victory in a general election.
The 1995 Conservative Party leadership election was initiated when the incumbent leader and prime minister, John Major, resigned as Conservative leader on 22 June 1995, in order to face a leadership challenge from his critics within the party. On 4 July 1995, he was re-elected, beating the only other candidate, the former Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood.
Scottish Labour, officially the Scottish Labour Party, is the part of the UK Labour Party active in Scotland. Ideologically social democratic and unionist, it holds 22 of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 2 of 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons. It is represented by 262 of the 1,227 local councillors across Scotland. The Scottish Labour party has no separate Chief Whip at Westminster.
The 1997 Conservative Party leadership election was triggered when John Major resigned as leader on 2 May 1997, following his party's landslide defeat at the 1997 general election, which ended 18 years of Conservative Government of the United Kingdom. Major had been Conservative leader and prime minister since November 1990.
Roderick Richards was a British politician who was leader of the Welsh Conservatives from 1996 to 1999, and a Welsh Assembly member (AM) for the North Wales region from 1999 until 2003.
The Welsh Conservatives, also known as the Welsh Conservative Party, is the branch of the United Kingdom Conservative Party that operates in Wales. At Westminster elections, it is the second-most popular political party in Wales, having obtained the second-largest share of the vote at every general election since 1931. In Senedd elections, the Conservatives are currently the second-most supported party but have at times been third. They hold 14 of the 40 Welsh seats in the UK Parliament, and 16 of the 60 seats in the Senedd.
Paul Windsor Davies is a British politician who has served as Member of the Senedd (MS) for Preseli Pembrokeshire since 2007. He served as Leader of the Welsh Conservatives and Leader of the Opposition in Wales from June 2018 to January 2021, resigning after possible breaches of Welsh COVID-19 rules. He had previously been Deputy Leader from 2011 to 2018 and Acting Leader in 2011 and 2018.
The Portillo moment was the declaration of the result for the Enfield Southgate constituency in the 1997 United Kingdom general election, at around 3:10am on 2 May 1997. The Labour Party candidate Stephen Twigg defeated the sitting MP, Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo. The result was perceived as a pivotal indication that the Conservatives would be voted out of office after 18 years, and that Labour would win the election by a substantial majority.
The shadow cabinet minister for international development is the lead spokesperson for the United Kingdom's Official Opposition on issues related to international aid, most notably to the Third World. The shadow cabinet minister holds the Minister of State for Development and Africa to account in Parliament. The role previously had no counterpart in the Government between 2020 and 2022 after the Department for International Development (DFID) and the role of international development secretary was abolished by the second Johnson government in 2020. The position was renamed from Shadow Secretary of State for International Development in November 2021 and placed under the Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Rod Richards, the leader of the Welsh Conservative Group in the National Assembly for Wales, formed his frontbench team of party spokespeople on 13 May 1998. Richards had led his party into the 1999 National Assembly for Wales election after being elected as leader of the Welsh Conservative Group in 1998.
