Seats won in the election (outer ring)
against number of votes (inner ring).
The
UK general election, 2001 was held on 7 June
2001 and was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media.
There was
little change at all - outside Northern Ireland
- with 620 out of 641 seats remaining
unchanged. Labour enjoyed its second so-called 'landslide
victory' in a row, maintaining its position from the
previous election.
Tony Blair became the first Labour prime
minister to win enough seats to have a full second consecutive term
in office. Labour won a majority of 167 overall (previously 179)
and 247 over the Conservatives (previously 254).
The
Conservatives netted a
gain of only one seat after their crushing defeat of 1997 (gaining
a few seats from Labour, but losing several to the
Liberal Democrats). Conservative leader
William Hague resigned immediately,
becoming the first Conservative leader since
Austen Chamberlain to leave office
without becoming
Prime Minister. The
Liberal Democrats, under
Charles
Kennedy, made a gain of six more seats from their already
historic high of the 1997 election.
The elections were also marked by voter apathy, with turnout
falling to 59%, the lowest since the
Coupon Election of
1918. Throughout the election the
Labour Party had maintained a significant
lead in the opinion polls and the result was deemed to be so
certain that some
bookmakers paid out for
a Labour majority before the election day.
In total, a mere 29 parliamentary seats changed hands at the 2001
election.
The election had been expected in May, to coincide with local
elections, but both were postponed because of rural movement
restrictions imposed in response to a
foot and mouth outbreak.
One of the
more noted events of a quiet campaign was when a countryside
protester Craig Evans threw an egg at Deputy Prime
Minister John Prescott in Rhyl
; Prescott
then punched him and a struggle ensued, in front of television cameras. The 2001 Election also
saw the rare election of an independent.
Dr. Richard Taylor of
Independent
Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern (usually now known
simply as "Health Concern") unseated a government minister.
There was
also a high vote for British
National Party leader Nick Griffin
in Oldham
, in the wake
of recent race riots in the town.
In
Northern
Ireland, the election was far more dramatic and marked a
move by unionists away from
support for the Good Friday
Agreement, with the moderate unionist Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) losing to
the more hardline Democratic
Unionist Party (DUP). This polarisation was also seen in
the nationalist community, with the
Social Democratic and Labour
Party (SDLP) vote losing out to the hardline republican
Sinn Féin. It also saw a tightening
of the parties as the small
UK
Unionist Party lost its only seat.
During the
election, Sharron Storer, a resident of Birmingham
, England
, criticised
Prime Minister Tony Blair in front of television cameras about
conditions in the National
Health Service. The widely-televised incident happened
on 16 May during a campaign visit by Blair to the
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in
Birmingham. Sharron Storer's
partner, Keith Sedgewick, a
cancer patient with
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and therefore
highly susceptible to infection, was being treated at the time in
the
bone marrow unit, but no bed could
be found for him and he was transferred to the casualty unit for
his first 24 hours.
Results
Total votes cast: 26,368,204. All parties with more
than 500 votes shown.
The seat gains reflect changes on the 1997 general election
result. Two seats had changed hands in by-elections in
the intervening period. These were as follows:
The results of the election give a
Gallagher index of dis-proportionality of
17.74.
Votes summary
Seats summary
See also
Manifestos
References
- BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | The Basics |
past_elections | 2001: Labour claims second term
- BBC story from 16 May 2001
- BBC story from 17 May 2001
Bibliography
External links
from Conservative to Liberal Democrats. This
seat stayed Liberal Democrat in 2001.
.
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