United Kingdom general election, 1997

United Kingdom general election, 1997
1992 ←
members		 1 May 1997
Members elected		 → 2001
members
All 659 seats to the House of Commons
330 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Tony Blair John Major Paddy Ashdown
Party Labour Conservative Liberal Democrat
Leader since 21 July 1994 28 November 1990 16 July 1988
Leader's seat Sedgefield Huntingdon Yeovil
Last election 271 seats, 34.4% 336 seats, 41.9% 20 seats, 17.8%
Seats before 274 343 18
Seats won 418^ 165 46
Seat change 145* 178* 28*
Popular vote 13,518,167 9,600,943 5,242,947
Percentage 43.2% 30.7% 16.8%
Swing 8.8% 11.2% 1%
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results. Due to the nature of the source, not all constituencies may be correct

* Indicates boundary change - so this is a nominal figure ^ Figure does not include the speaker
PM before election

John Major
Conservative

 Subsequent PM

Tony Blair
Labour
1987 election • MPs
1992 election • MPs
1997 election • MPs
2001 election • MPs
2005 election • MPs

The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general election in a landslide victory with 418 seats, the most seats the party has ever held. Blair subsequently became Prime Minister.

Under the leadership of Tony Blair, the Labour Party had adopted a more centrist policy platform under the name 'New Labour'. This was seen as moving away from the traditionally more left-wing stance of the Labour Party. Labour made several campaign pledges such as the creation of a National Minimum Wage, devolution referendums for Scotland and Wales and promised greater economic competence than the Conservatives, who were unpopular following the events of Black Wednesday in 1992. The Labour campaign was ultimately a success and the party returned an unprecedented 418 MPs and began the first of three consecutive terms for Labour in government.

The Conservative Party was led by then-incumbent Prime Minister John Major and ran their campaign emphasising low unemployment figures and a strong economy. However, a series of scandals, party disunity over the European Union and the events of Black Wednesday all contributed to the Conservatives' worst defeat since 1906, with only 165 MPs elected to Westminster, as well as their lowest percentage share of the vote since 1832. The party was left with no seats whatsoever in Scotland or Wales, largely attributed to the party's uncompromising position on devolution, and many key Conservative politicians, including Defence Secretary Michael Portillo, Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, Trade Secretary Ian Lang, Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth and former ministers Edwina Currie, Norman Lamont, David Mellor and Neil Hamilton all lost their parliamentary seats. Following the defeat, the Conservatives began the longest continuous spell in opposition in the history of the present day (post-Tamworth Manifesto) Conservative Party, and indeed the longest such spell for any incarnation of the Tories/Conservatives since the 1760s, lasting 13 years.

Minor parties enjoyed success during the election, for instance the Liberal Democrats under Paddy Ashdown returned 46 MPs to parliament, the most for any third party since 1929, despite a drop in popular vote and the Scottish National Party (SNP) returned 6 MPs, double what it had in 1992. The election night was broadcast live on the BBC, and presented by David Dimbleby, Peter Snow and Jeremy Paxman.[1]

Contents

Overview

The British economy had been in recession at the time of the 1992 election, which the Conservatives had won, and although the recession had ended within a year, events such as Black Wednesday had tarnished the Conservative government's reputation for economic management. Labour had elected John Smith as its party leader in 1992, however his death from heart attack in 1994 led the way for Tony Blair to become Labour leader. Blair brought the party closer to the political centre and abolished the party's Clause IV in their constitution, which had committed them to mass nationalisation of industry. Labour also reversed its policy on unilateral nuclear disarmament and the events of Black Wednesday allowed Labour to promise greater economic management under the Chancellorship of Gordon Brown. A manifesto, entitled New Labour, New Life For Britain was released in 1996 and outlined 5 key pledges:

Disputes within the Conservative government over European Union issues, and a variety of "sleaze" allegations had severely affected the government's popularity. Despite the strong economic recovery and substantial fall in unemployment in the four years leading up to the election, the rise in Conservative support was only marginal with all of the major opinion polls having shown Labour in a comfortable lead since late 1992.[2]

Campaign

Prime Minister John Major called the election on Monday 17 March 1997, ensuring the formal campaign would be unusually long, at six weeks (Parliament was dissolved on 8 April[3]). It was stated at the time by Conservatives that a long campaign would expose Labour and allow the Conservative message to be heard. In fact the Conservative campaign was quickly blown off course when Major was accused of arranging an early dissolution to protect Neil Hamilton from a pending parliamentary report into his conduct: a report that Major had earlier guaranteed would be published before an election.

In his speech outside Number 10 Downing Street shortly after asking the Queen for a dissolution of parliament, Prime Minister John Major said: "Not only do I think this election is winnable, I believe the Conservative Party will win this election". By the time Mr Major had made the announcement, Tony Blair was already on the campaign trail.

Labour also had their difficulties- in particular an argument about whether or not the party would privatise the air traffic control system, and over the party's relationship with the trade unions. Labour leader Tony Blair focused on a "New Labour" platform which turned away from previous Labour stalwart planks such as nationalisation; Blair said: "The presumption should be that economic activity is best left to the private sector."[4]

By the middle of the campaign, the large number of Conservative candidates - including some serving ministers - who publicly repudiated the government policy on the European single currency had become a key issue. Labour were themselves cautious about this issue, but gained heavily from the symbolism of a deeply divided Conservative party.

In the final stages of the campaign, Labour concentrated heavily on projecting an image of Tony Blair as a dynamic and energetic young leader while the Conservatives were seen to indulge in infighting - with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke describing the views of the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, on Europe as "paranoid nonsense".

For the Liberal Democrats Paddy Ashdown ran a forthright campaign, and due to his military experiences was able to speak with great authority on foreign issues. Ashdown was key to the Liberal campaign as he was one of the few well recognised national figures in his party, he presented a strong personality and style that resonated with many voters. The Liberals put a great emphasis on education during the campaign, and in order to meet their spending pledges the Liberal Democrats told voters a 1p increase on income tax would be necessary.[2]

Notional 1992 election

The election was fought under new boundaries, with a net increase of eight seats compared to the 1992 election (651 to 659). Changes listed here are from the notional 1992 result, had it been fought on the boundaries established in 1997. These notional results were used by all media organisations at the time.

UK General Election 1992
Party Seats Gains Losses Net gain/loss Seats % Votes % Votes +/-
  Labour 274 +3 41.58 34.4 11,560,484
  Conservative 343 +7 52.05 41.9 14,093,007
  Liberal Democrat 18 -2 2.73 17.8 5,999,384
  Others 24 3.64 5.9

Results

Labour won a landslide victory with their largest parliamentary majority (179) to date. On the BBC's election night programme Professor Anthony King described the result of the exit poll, which accurately predicted a Labour landslide, as being akin to "an asteroid hitting the planet and destroying practically all life on Earth". After years of trying the Labour Party had convinced the electorate that they would usher in a new age of prosperity--their policies, organisation and tone of optimism slotting perfectly into place.

Labour's victory was largely credited to the charisma of Tony Blair and a Labour public relations machine managed by Alastair Campbell. Between the 1992 election and the 1997 election there had also been major steps to modernise the party, including scrapping Clause IV that had committed the party to extending public ownership of industry. New Labour had suddenly seized the middle ground of the political spectrum, attracting voters much further to the right than their traditional working class or left-wing support. Famously, in the early hours of 2 May 1997 a party was held at the Royal Festival Hall, in which Blair stated triumphantly that "a new dawn has broken, has it not?".

The election was a crushing defeat for the Conservative Party, with the party having its lowest percentage share of the popular vote since 1832 under the Duke of Wellington's leadership, being wiped out in Scotland and Wales. A number of prominent Conservative MPs lost their seats in the election, including Michael Portillo, Malcolm Rifkind, Edwina Currie, David Mellor, Neil Hamilton and Norman Lamont. Such was the extent of Conservative losses at the election that Cecil Parkinson, speaking on the BBC's election night programme, remarked upon the Conservatives winning their second seat that he was pleased that the subsequent election for the leadership would be contested.

The election was a massive success for the Liberal Democrats, who more than doubled their number of seats thanks to the use of tactical voting against the Conservatives. Although their share of the vote fell slightly, their total of 46 MPs was the highest since Lloyd George got 59 seats in 1929.

The Referendum Party, which sought a referendum on the United Kingdom's relationship with the European Union, came fourth in terms of votes with 800,000 votes mainly from former Conservative voters , but won no seats in parliament. The six parties with the next highest votes stood only in either Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales; in order, they were the Scottish National Party, the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Féin, and the Democratic Unionist Party.

In the previously safe seat of Tatton, where incumbent Conservative MP Neil Hamilton was facing charges of having taken cash for questions, the Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties decided not to field candidates in order that an Independent candidate, Martin Bell, would have a better chance of winning the seat, which he duly did with a comfortable margin.

The result declared for the constituency of Winchester showed a margin of victory of just two votes for the Liberal Democrats. The defeated Conservative candidate mounted a successful legal challenge to the result on the grounds that errors by election officials (failures to stamp certain votes) had changed the result, the court ruled the result invalid and ordered a by-election on 20 November which was won by the Liberal Democrats with a much larger majority, causing much recrimination in the Conservative Party about the decision to challenge the original result in the first place.

This election would also mark the start of Labour government for the next 13 years until the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010.

UK General Election 1997
Candidates Votes
Party Standing Elected Gained Unseated Net  % of total  % No. Net %
  Labour 639 418 145 0 + 145 63.4 43.2 13,518,167 + 8.8
  Conservative 648 165 0 178 - 178 25.0 30.7 9,600,943 - 11.2
  Liberal Democrat 639 46 30 2 + 28 7.0 16.8 5,242,947 - 1.0
  Referendum Party 547 0 0 0 0 2.6 811,849 N/A
  SNP 72 6 3 0 + 3 0.9 2.0 621,550 + 0.1
  Ulster Unionist 16 10 1 0 +1 1.5 0.8 258,349 0.0
  SDLP 18 3 0 1 - 1 0.5 0.6 190,814 + 0.1
  Plaid Cymru 40 4 0 0 0 0.6 0.5 161,030 0.0
  Sinn Féin 17 2 2 0 + 2 0.3 0.4 126,921 0.0
  Democratic Unionist 9 2 0 1 - 1 0.3 0.3 107,348 0.0
  UKIP 193 0 0 0 0 0.3 105,722 N/A
  Independent 25 1 1 0 + 1 0.2 0.1 64,482 0.0
  Green 89 0 0 0 0 0.3 61,731 - 0.2
  Alliance 17 0 0 0 0 0.2 62,972 0.0
  Socialist Labour 64 0 0 0 0 0.2 52,109 N/A
  Liberal 53 0 0 0 0 0.1 45,166 - 0.1
  BNP 57 0 0 0 0 0.1 35,832 0.0
  Natural Law 197 0 0 0 0 0.1 30,604 - 0.1
  Speaker 1 1 1 0 0 0.1 23,969
  ProLife Alliance 56 0 0 0 0 0.1 19,332 N/A
  UK Unionist 1 1 1 0 + 1 0.2 0.0 12,817 N/A
  Progressive Unionist 3 0 0 0 0 0.0 10,928 N/A
  National Democrats 21 0 0 0 0 0.0 10,829 N/A
  Socialist Alternative 0 0 0 0 0.0 9,906 N/A
  Scottish Socialist 16 0 0 0 0 0.0 9,740 N/A
  Independent Labour 4 0 0 0 0 0.0 9,233 - 0.1
  Independent Conservative 4 0 0 0 0 0.0 8,608 - 0.1
  Monster Raving Loony 24 0 0 0 0 0.0 7,906 - 0.1
  Rainbow Dream Ticket 29 0 0 0 0 0.0 3,745 N/A
  NI Women's Coalition 3 0 0 0 0 0.0 3,024 N/A
  Workers' Party 8 0 0 0 0 0.0 2,766 - 0.1
  National Front 6 0 0 0 0 0.0 2,716 N/A
  Legalise Cannabis 4 0 0 0 0 0.0 2,085 N/A
  People's Labour 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,995 N/A
  Mebyon Kernow 4 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,906 N/A
  Scottish Green 5 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,721
  Conservative Anti-Euro 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,434 N/A
  Socialist (GB) 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,359 N/A
  Community Representative 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,290 N/A
  Residents 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,263 N/A
  Social Democrat 2 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,246 - 0.1
  Workers Revolutionary 9 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,178 N/A
  Real Labour 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,117 N/A
  Independent Democratic 0 0 0 0 0.0 982
  Independent Liberal Democrat 0 0 0 0 0.0 890
  Communist 3 0 0 0 0 0.0 639
  Independent Green 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 593
  Green (NI) 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 539
  Socialist Equality 3 0 0 0 0 0.0 505

All parties with more than 500 votes shown. Labour total includes New Labour and "Labour Time for Change" candidates; Conservative total includes candidates in Northern Ireland (excluded in some lists) and "Loyal Conservative" candidate.

The Popular Unionist MP elected in 1992 died in 1995 and the party folded shortly afterwards.

There was no incumbent Speaker in the 1992 election.

Government's new majority 179
Total votes cast 31,286,284
Turnout 71.3%
Popular vote
Labour
  
 43.21%
Conservative
  
 30.69%
Liberal Democrat
  
 16.76%
Referendum
  
 2.59%
Scottish National
  
 1.99%
Others
  
 1.89%
Parliamentary seats
Labour
  
 63.43%
Conservative
  
 25.04%
Liberal Democrat
  
 6.98%
Scottish National
  
 0.91%
Ulster Unionist
  
 1.52%
Others
  
 2.12%

Defeated Incumbent MPs

Conservatives:

A total of 127 sitting Conservative MPs were defeated, including seven members of Cabinet and thirty junior Ministers and Under-Secretaries.

Defeated Conservatives

Ministers who lost their seats

Prominent Conservative MPs who lost their seats

Constituencies given are those contested in 1997, rather than those held prior to the election - Norman Lamont, for example, had previously represented Kingston-upon-Thames in London.

Conservative MPs who lost their seats

Liberal Democrats who lost their seats

†Diana Maddock was elected at the Christchurch by-election, 1993, and so is not included in the table of results.

Post election events

The poor results for the Conservative Party led to infighting, with the One Nation, Tory Reform Group, and right wing Maastricht rebels blaming each other for the defeat. Party Chairman Brian Mawhinney said on the night of the election, that it was due to disillusionment with 18 years of Conservative rule. John Major resigned as party leader, saying "When the curtain falls, it is time to leave the stage".

The Liberal Democrat vote fell, but in terms of seats, it was their best General Election since 1929 under David Lloyd George's leadership. Paddy Ashdown's continued leadership had been vindicated, despite a disappointing 1992 election, and they were in a position to build positively as a strong third party into the new millennium.

Internet coverage

With the huge rise in internet use since the previous general election, BBC News created a special website covering the election as an experiment for the efficiency of an online news service which was due for a launch later in the year.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ “”. "BBC Vote '97 Election coverage". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JttnDggWb8&feature=related. Retrieved 2010-12-09. 
  2. ^ a b "1997: Labour landslide ends Tory rule". BBC News. 15 April 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393323.stm. Retrieved 28 March 2010. 
  3. ^ "House of Lords Debates 17 March 1997 vol 579 cc653-4: Dissolution of Parliament". House of Lords Hansard. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1997/mar/17/dissolution-of-parliament. Retrieved 21 June 2010. 
  4. ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 326. ISBN 0465041957. 
  5. ^ "Major events influenced BBC’s news online | Social media agency London | FreshNetworks blog". Freshnetworks.com. 2008-06-05. http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2008/06/major-events-influenced-bbcs-news-online. Retrieved 2010-12-09. 

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