United Kingdom general election, 1906

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1895 election • MPs

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1906 election • MPs

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December 1910 election • MPs

Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Arthur Balfour

Keir Hardie

John Redmond

The UK general election of 1906 was held from 12th January – 8th February 1906.

The Liberals, led by sitting minority Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman, won a large majority in the election. The Conservatives under Arthur Balfour lost more than half their seats, while the Labour Representation Committee was far more successful than in 1900 and after the election would be reformed as "The Labour Party" with 29 MPs and Keir Hardie as leader. The Irish Parliamentary Party, led by John Redmond, achieved its seats with a relatively low number of votes, as 74 candidates stood unopposed.

This election was a landslide defeat for the Conservative Party, with the primary reason given by historians as the party's weakness after its split over the issue of free trade (Joseph Chamberlain had resigned from government in September 1903 in order to campaign for Tariff Reform, which would allow 'preferential tariffs'. Many working class people saw this as a threat to the price of food, hence the debate was nicknamed 'Big Loaf, Little Loaf'. The Liberals' landslide victory led to the passing of social legislation known as the Liberal reforms.

1 Results
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Results

UK General Election 1906
Party		Seats	Gains	Losses	Net Gain/Loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/-
	Liberal	399			+ 216		48.7	2,751,057
	Conservative and Liberal Unionist	156			− 246		42.9	2,422,071
	Labour	29	28	1	+ 27		5.7	321,663
	Independent Conservative	1	1	0	+ 1		0.8	42,155
	Irish Parliamentary	82	6	1	+ 5		0.6	35,031
	Independent Labour	1	1	0	+ 1		0.4	18,886
	Social Democratic Federation	0	0	0	0		0.4	18,446
	Scottish Workers	0	0	0	0		0.3	14,877
	Free Trader	0	0	0	0		0.2	8,974
	Independent Lib-Lab	1	1	0	+ 1		0.1	4,841
	Independent	0	0	0	0		0.1	3,806
	Independent Nationalist	1	0	0	0		0.0	1,800
	Independent Liberal	0	0	1	− 1		0.0	1,581
	Independent Liberal Unionist	0	0	0	0		0.0	153