United Kingdom general election, 1970

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Edward Heath

Harold Wilson

The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their seats. The Conservatives, in coalition with the Ulster Unionists, would be given a majority of 31.

Most opinion polls prior to the election had predicted a comfortable Labour victory and had put Labour up to 12.4% ahead of the Conservatives. However on election day, a late swing gave the Conservatives a 3.4% lead. Commentators believed that an unexpectedly bad set of balance of payments figures released in polling week, and loss of national prestige after the England football team's defeat in the World Cup, contributed to the Labour defeat.^[1]

The most notable casualty of the election was George Brown, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, who lost to the Conservative candidate in the Belper constituency. Brown had held the seat since 1945.

BBC election coverage

On the BBC, the election coverage was led by Cliff Michelmore along with Robin Day, David Butler and Robert McKenzie. There were various cutaways to the BBC regions. The coverage was shown again on BBC Parliament on 26 September 2003, and again on 18 July 2005 as a tribute to Edward Heath upon his death the previous day.

1 Opinion poll summary
2 Results
3 Televised declarations
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Opinion poll summary

ORC (Opinion Research Council): Conservative lead of 1%
Harris (Express Newspapers): Labour lead of 2%
NOP (National Opinion Polls): Labour lead of 4%
Marplan: Labour lead of 9%
BBC Exit Poll in Gravesend constituency: Conservative lead of 1%

It should be noted that the ORC and BBC poll were conducted the day before and the day of polling. All other polls were conducted the weekend before polling.

[edit] Results

UK General Election 1970
Party		Seats	Gains	Losses	Net Gain/Loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/-
	Conservative	330	75	6	+ 69		46.4	13,145,123	+ 4.5
	Labour	287	10	87	- 77		43.1	12,208,758	- 4.9
	Liberal	6	0	6	- 6		7.5	2,117,035	- 1.0
	Scottish National Party	1	1	0	+ 1		1.1	306,802	+ 0.6
	Plaid Cymru	0	0	0	0		0.6	175,016	+ 0.4
	Unity	2	2	0	+ 2		0.4	140,930	N/A
	Independent	0	0	0	0		0.1	39,264	0.0
	Communist	0	0	0	0		0.1	37,970	- 0.1
	Protestant Unionist	1	1	0	+ 1		0.1	35,303	N/A
	Republican Labour	1	1	0	+ 1		0.1	30,649	N/A
	Independent Labour	1	1	0	0		0.1	24,685	+ 0.1
	Independent Conservative	0	0	0	0		0.1	24,014	+ 0.1
	Democratic	0	0	0	0		0.1	15,292	N/A
	National Democratic	0	0	0	0		0.1	14,276	N/A
	National Front	0	0	0	0		0.1	11,449	N/A
	National Democrats	0	0	0	0		0.0	10,349	N/A
	Vectis National	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,607	N/A
	Independent Liberal	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,456	0.0
	World Government	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,016	N/A
	Mebyon Kernow	0	0	0	0		0.0	960	N/A
	Ind. Labour Party	0	0	0	0		0.0	847	N/A
	British Movement	0	0	0	0		0.0	704
	Independent Progressive	0	0	0	0		0.0	658
	Socialist Party (GB)	0	0	0	0		0.0	376
	Young Ideas	0	0	0	0		0.0	142
	British Commonwealth	0	0	0	0		0.0	117

Total votes cast: 28,305,534. All parties are listed. The Conservative figure includes 8 Ulster Unionists.

[edit] Televised declarations

(From BBC Parliament Replay.) These declarations were covered live by the BBC where the returning officer was heard to say "duly elected".

Constituency	Winning party 1966		Constituency result by party						Winning party 1970
Constituency	Winning party 1966		Con	Lab	Lib	PC	SNP	Others	Winning party 1970
Guildford		Conservative	27,203	13,108	8,822					Conservative hold
Cheltenham		Conservative	22,823	14,213	8,431					Conservative hold
Salford West		Labour	14,310	16,986						Labour hold
Wolverhampton North East		Labour	15,358	17,251				1,592		Labour hold
Salford East		Labour	9,583	15,853	3,000					Labour hold
Wolverhampton South West		Conservative	26,252	11,753	2,459			318		Conservative hold