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Labour Landslide: The 1997 UK Election -
Some Facts and Figures
Gerard Newman
Statistics Group
Rob Lundie
Politics and Public Administration Group
May 1997
Introduction
The Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, achieved an historic victory in
the election for the House of Commons held on 1 May 1997. The Conservative
Party, led by Prime Minister John Major, was swept from office after 18
years in power.
The magnitude of Labour's victory and the apparent disarray of the Conservatives
has led to speculation that Labour could be in office for at least the
next decade.
This Research Note provides a summary of the election results, places
the 1997 result in an historical context and looks at some of the prominent
winners and losers in the election.
The Result
The Labour Party won a massive 419 seats, giving it an overall majority
of 179 in the House of Commons. With a 10% swing in its favour, Labour
received 44.4% of the vote compared with the Conservatives' 31.4%. The
Conservatives lost 171 seats, leaving them with 165. Apart from Labour
the other big winners in the election were the Liberal Democrats who,
despite suffering an overall drop in support, gained 26 seats to give
them 46 in total.
The Scottish Nationalists were also able to take advantage of the collapse
in the Conservatives' vote and picked up 3 seats, while the position of
the Welsh nationalists, Plaid Cymru, remained unchanged.
1997 Election Result
Seats Votes
Won Change % Swing
Labour Party 419 +148 44.4 +10.0
Conservative 165 -171 31.4 -10.5
Party
Liberal Democrats 46 +26 17.2 -0.6
Scottish Nationalists 6 +3 }
Plaid Cymru 4 . . } 7.0 +1.1
Other 19 +2 }
Total 659 +8 100.0
Historical Context
The 1997 election represents a sea change in British politics. Among
the historical highlights are:
- Labour's majority in the House of Commons is the party's largest ever.
- Labour's share of the vote was its highest since 1966.
- The 10% swing to the Labour Party was the highest swing to the party
since 1945.
- The result for the Conservatives was their worst in modern political
history.
- Labour's margin surpassed the magnitude of Margaret Thatcher's victories
in 1983 and 1987 and is the largest gained by any party since 1935.
- The result for the Liberal Democrats was the best result for a third
party since the Second World War.
The Regions
The collapse in the Conservatives' vote in the industrial cities of
England and in Scotland and Wales has left the Tories in danger of being
the party of the shires and the South-East. Nowhere has the demise of
the Conservatives been more apparent than in Scotland and Wales, where
the Conservatives have been left with no representatives in any of the
112 constituencies. In the North of England the Conservative rout resulted
in only 17 seats being won out of 162 on offer, while in the Midlands
the Conservatives won 28 out of the 103 constituencies. Only in the South-East
did the Conservatives remain the dominant party, winning 73 of the 117
seats.
The Liberal Democrats did best in their traditional heartland of the
South-West, where they won 14 seats, one fewer than the Conservatives,
while in Scotland they won 10 seats.
Labour won a majority of seats in all regions with the exception of
East Anglia and the South-East. In London, Labour won 57 seats to the
Conservatives 11, while the Liberal Democrats won 6.
The special nature of politics in Northern Ireland was demonstrated
by the election of a combination of loyalist and republican candidates.
Unionists of various guises (Ulster Unionists, Democratic Unionists and
UK Unionists) won 13 seats while the Social Democratic and Labour Party
won 3 seats and Sinn Fein won 2 seats (Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness,
neither of whom are expectecd take up their seats in the Commons).
UK Election Results 1945-1997
1945 1950 1951 1955 1959 1964 1966 1970 1974 1974 1979 1983 1987 1992 1997
Votes %
Lab 47.8 46.1 48.8 46.4 43.8 44.1 47.9 43.0 37.1 39.2 36.9 27.5 30.8 34.4 44.4
Cons 39.8 43.5 48.0 49.7 49.4 43.4 41.9 46.4 37.9 35.8 43.9 42.4 42.3 41.9 31.4
Lib/LD 9.0 9.1 2.5 2.7 5.9 11.2 8.5 7.5 19.3 18.3 13.8 25.3 22.5 17.8 17.2
SNP 0.1 0.2 0.5 1.1 2.0 2.9 1.6 1.1 1.3 1.9 }
PC 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.5 } 7.0
Others 3.4 1.3 0.7 1.2 0.5 0.8 0.8 1.5 3.1 3.2 3.4 3.2 2.7 3.5 }
Seats
Lab 393 315 295 277 258 317 363 287 301 319 269 209 229 271 419
Cons 213 298 321 344 365 304 253 330 297 277 339 397 376 336 165
Lib/LD 12 9 6 6 6 9 12 6 14 13 11 23 22 20 46
SNP 1 7 11 2 2 3 3 6
PC 2 3 2 2 3 4 4
Others 22 3 3 3 1 2 6 14 12 12 17 17 17 19
Total 640 625 625 630 630 630 630 630 635 635 635 650 650 651 659
Turnout % 72.7 84.0 82.5 76.7 78.8 77.1 75.8 72.0 78.7 72.8 76.0 72.7 75.3 77.7 71.3
Winners and Losers
The 1997 elections provided a number of prominent winners and losers,
among the more interesting results were the following:
- Six Conservative Cabinet Ministers lost their seats. Among them were
Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo; the Foreign Secretary, Malcolm
Rifkind; the Scottish Secretary, Michael Forsyth; the President of the
Board of Trade and Industry Secretary Ian Lang; and the House Leader,
Tony Newton.
- Former Conservative Ministers David Mellor and Norman Lamont lost
their seats.
- The Referendum Party backed by prominent businessman Sir James Goldsmith
polled poorly with no candidate retaining their deposit.
- Former BBC journalist Martin Bell defeated Conservative Minister Neil
Hamilton in the seat of Tatton to become one of two independents in
the Commons, the other being the Speaker, Betty Boothroyd.
- 120 women were elected (101 Labour), the highest ever and double the
number in the previous Parliament.
- Actress Glenda Jackson (Labour) retained her seat while Olympic athlete
Sebastian Coe (Conservative) lost his.
- Patricia Hewitt (Labour), daughter of former senior Australian public
servant Sir Lenox Hewitt, was elected.
| Election System
For the 1997 election the House of Commons was enlarged from 651
to 659 members. Members are elected for a maximum term of 5 years
using the first-past-the-post election system. Voting is voluntary
and is held on a week day. Voter turnout varies with a number of
factors (weather, perceived closeness of result, etc.) but has consistently
been over 70% since the War. At 71.3% the turnout for this election
is the lowest since 1935.
Under the first-past-the-post system the candidate with the highest
number of votes wins, regardless of whether a majority of votes
is received or not. Thus some constituencies can be won with a surprisingly
low vote, e.g. in Down North (Northern Ireland) the UK Unionist
candidate won with 35.05% of the vote. No party has won more than
50% at the vote nation wide since 1935.
The most significant drawback of the first-past-the-post system
is its unrepresentative nature: the winning party tends to be over
represented while minor parties tend to be under represented. Labour
won 63.6% of the seats with 44.4% of the vote, while the Liberal
Democrats won only 7.0% of the seats with 17.2% of the vote.
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Related Papers
An assessment of some of the implications of the 1997 UK election result
is made in a Current Issues Brief by Dr John Hart (Politics, ANU). See
also the Information and Research Services Current Comment publication
on the UK election.
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