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 was re-elected to serve a second term in government with another landslide victory with a 167 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 number of votes Labour received fell by nearly three million. Tony Blair went on to become the only Labour Prime Minister to serve two consecutive full terms in office. As Labour retained almost all of their seats won in the 1997 landslide victory, the media dubbed the 2001 election "the quiet landslide".
The politics of the United Kingdom functions within 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 Prime Minister John Major was defeated in a landslide by the Labour Party led by Tony Blair, achieving a 179-seat majority.
John Smith was a British Labour Party politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death from a heart attack in May 1994. He was also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Monklands East.
William Jefferson Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond, is a British politician and life peer who served as 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 served 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.
Timothy Stephen Kenneth Yeo is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of South Suffolk between the 1983 United Kingdom general election and that of 2015, when he was deselected by his constituency party.
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.
John Cradock Maples, Baron Maples was a British politician and life peer who served as Economic Secretary to the Treasury from 1989 to 1992. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Lewisham West from 1983 to 1992 and Stratford-upon-Avon from 1997 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 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, and as of 2024 remains the party's most recent general election victory.
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. He was a Conservative before joining UKIP in 2013. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Clwyd North West, in Wales, from 1992 to 1997, when he lost his seat in the Labour Party landslide. He was also the first Leader of the Welsh Conservatives in 1999, after being elected as an Assembly Member for North Wales.
The Portillo moment was the declaration of the result for the Enfield Southgate constituency in the 1997 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.
Tony Blair was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from his election as Leader on 21 July 1994 until he became Prime Minister on 2 May 1997. Blair became leader upon the death of John Smith. Under Blair, the Labour Party was rebranded as New Labour to distance itself from previous Labour politics and the traditional idea of socialism. Despite opposition from Labour's left-wing, he abolished Clause IV, the party's formal commitment to the nationalisation of the economy, weakened trade union influence in the party, and committed to the free market and the European Union.
The first Blair ministry lasted from May 1997 to June 2001. After eighteen years in opposition, Labour ousted the Conservatives at the May 1997 election with a 179-seat majority. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who turned 44 years old days after leading Labour to victory, was the youngest Prime Minister of the twentieth century.
