Seats won in the election (outer ring)
against number of votes (inner ring).
The
UK general election, 1997 was held on 1 May
1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April
1992. The
Labour Party won the
general election in a landslide victory with 418 seats, the most
seats the party has ever held.
The Conservatives ended up with 165
seats, the fewest seats they have held since the 1906 General Election,
and with no MPs for seats in Scotland
or Wales
. This
marked the beginning of what has become the longest spell in
opposition for the Conservative Party since the 19th century, as
well as the longest period of time in government ever for the
Labour Party.
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 Tory
government's reputation for economic management and Labour were
leading the way in the polls a long time before the death of their
leader
John Smith
in May 1994, after which Tony Blair became leader of the party.
Added to this, disputes within government over
European Union issues, and a variety of
"sleaze" allegations had severely affected the government's
popularity.
Results
The election was fought under new boundaries, with a net increase
of eight seats compared to the 1992 election. 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.
Votes summary
Seats summary
Total votes cast: 31,286,284. 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.
Turnout: 71.2%
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.
Campaign
Prime Minister
John Major obtained a
dissolution on Monday 17 March 1997 - so
ensuring the formal campaign would be unusually long, at six weeks.
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.
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."
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".
Overall picture and background
Labour won a
landslide victory
with their largest parliamentary majority (179) to date,
Professor Anthony King describing
the election as being like "an asteroid hitting the planet and
destroying practically all life on Earth". The Liberal Democrat
vote fell, but in terms of seats, it was their best General
Election since
1929 under
David Lloyd George's leadership.
The
election was a heavy 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.
Several prominent members of the party also lost their seats,
including:
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".
Labour's victory was largely credited to the charisma of
Tony Blair and a slick 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.
Famously, in the early
hours of 2 May 1997 a party was held at the Royal Festival
Hall
, in which Blair stated triumphantly "A new dawn has
broken, has it not?".
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.
See also
References
-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393323.stm
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