Talk:United Kingdom general elections
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Merge with British Elections
stuff to be merged in with this article from British elections
General elections take place at least every five years on a first-past-the-post election system. But the actual date is chosen at the discretion of the current Prime Minister and elections are often held before the end of the five-year term. The five years runs from the first meeting of Parliament following the election.
The Prime Minister asks the Queen to dissolve Parliament by Royal Proclamation. The Proclamation the formal Writs of Election which require an election to be held. The election is held 17 working days after the date of the Proclamation.
Since 1935 every general election has been held on a Thursday. Of the 16 general elections between 1945 and 2001, four have been in October, four in June, three in May and two in February.
When all of the results are known, the Queen will usually invite the leader of the party winning the most seats in the House of Commons to be Prime Minister and to form a new Government. The second largest party becomes the Official Opposition. Any smaller parties are collectively known as the Opposition, even if they support the Government.
From the Electoral register (2000) there are 44,423,440 people registered to vote in the UK, 36,994,211 of them in England.
- A list of the Prime Ministers
- Historical anomalies (now abolished) of the British electoral system
Above stuff has been merged in. Mintguy
Contents |
[edit] List of Elections
I've converted the list of elections to a table - it seemed like dates and majorities would be useful, and it was too much info not to use a table. Is it OK? Any thoughts? --rbrwr
[edit] Eligibility (1)
"Anyone resident in the UK who is a citizen of the UK, the Republic of Ireland or of a Commonwealth country and is 18 or over on the date of the election is eligible to vote"...
Is this really true? I would be able to vote in a British election if I were there at the time? - Montréalais
Yup. Yippee. So could I as an Irish citizen. But you would have to be resident, ie have a residential address. You couldn't simply turn up on the day, wave your passport and say "I wanna vote ÉÍREman 00:12 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)
- True, but you only have to have a permanent address about two weeks before the election in order to be added to the electoral register, now that we've had rolling registration for a few years. It used to be that you had to be resident on a date in October to be added to the register that came into force the following February. Arwel 00:21 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)
I was disappointed to find that I can't vote in Canadian elections despite being a resident. It seems a bit unfair that it only works one way. British subjects were allowed to at one time but not since 1975. Now you have to be a Canadian citizen, not just a resident. -- Derek Ross 00:54 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Eligibility (2)
"UK citizens who have moved abroad remain eligible to vote for 15 years thereafter." -- can someone confirm this? It was 20 years at least until 1997, and I haven't heard it's been reduced, though it's true this was seen as advantaging the Conservatives as their supporters were thought more likely to emigrate. -- Arwel 21:15, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- The Electoral Commission says 15. --rbrwr
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- (Over a year later)
I should admit that the EC seems to be wrong: it's definitiely 20 years in the Representation of the People Act 2000D'oh! Not reading my own sources! The change happened in 2001/2 according to the "Who can vote" factsheet that I linked earlier. --rbrwr± 20:24, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- (Over a year later)
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- Gotcha. Section 141 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. --rbrwr± 20:46, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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- ...and I'm going to be pedantic here and admit that my edit summary (Overseas electors: 20 years -> 15 (comes into force for the next election, see talk)) is wrong. It has already come into force; the next general election (which is what we are discussing here, of course) will be the first general election at which it applies (assuming no further change is made before the election), though it is apparently already the case for by-elections. --rbrwr± 22:41, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Fall of Thatcher, 1990
When Margaret Thatcher was deposed as leader of the Conservative Party in 1990, she lost her post as Prime Minister, and was succeeded by the winner of the contest for Conservative Party leader, John Major. No General Election was called, but did the Queen have a constitutional role here, or did Major simply inherit the office of Prime Minister as Thatcher's successor?
- The Queen's role was limited basically to appointing the person who could command a majority in Parliament ie. the leader of the largest pary, who happened to be Major. - Chrism 14:54, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
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- Formally, the Queen had to take her Prime Minister's advice, and Margaret Thatcher told her to appoint John Major. Thatcher could have gone on or suggested someone else, but she would have destroyed the Conservative government had she done so. Note that the dates here for elections are not the same as the dates in UK prime ministers, notably in February/March 1974]] where Edward Heath delayed resigning. --Henrygb 16:27, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] 1945?
Out of curiosity, I would like to know why only the elections since 1945 are listed, when Wikipedia has articles on all elections since 1832? ...
Since I don't watch this page, it would be very nice if someone could reply on my talk page. Thanks! — Timwi 22:07, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Reason for voting
Most voters choose who to vote for based on the candidates' parties, rather than the personalities or opinions of the candidates.
Is this statement NPOV? --Biekko 15:56, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd say so - surveys, the nature of the campaign, and sheer common sense prove this. This is true in all cases. except of course Sedgefield and Howard's constituency... Transylvania, isn't it? (most DEFINATELY POV there)
[edit] Eligibility (3)
This anonymous edit from December was wrong, and I'm sorry I didn't spot it at the time. Irish and Commonwealth citizens can vote in UK parliamentary elections, for reasons explained in the Electoral Commission factsheet that I have added to the external links section: It is a legacy of the concept of "British Subject", which encompassed the whole Empire at the time of the 1918 Representation of the People Act. In fact, that might be worth explaining in the article... --rbrwr± 19:50, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Hung Parliaments
I may be wrong, but I believe it is common practice to list minority parliaments as a negative majority, e.g. the 1929 election resulted in a majority of –42 because Labour was 42 seats off from forming a majority. I have updated the majority column in the list of Election Results since 1918 for the three Hung Parliaments since 1918 and added a note; if anyone has any corrections, feel free to make them. Thalion 00:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Has someone taken Churchill out 1940-1945?
- I'm sure the numbers for 1923 are wrong - Labour wasn't even the largest party and was about 67 seats behind the Conservatives alone, let alone when the Liberals are taken into account. Does anyone have the full figures for that Parliament? Timrollpickering 20:36, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Table of Elections
Not really sure how to fix this, but given Wikipedia's habbit of always linking calendar years, I very nearly didn't notice that the years in the general election table are links to articles about those specific elections, and not just to the year articles... Roy Badami 23:11, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Votes cast
I'm a bit confused as to the figures quoted for votes etc in some of the older elections. In former times (before 1900 for sure) a large number of seats would have been uncontested. Rremember that a borough/county might return up to three members and as I understand it, from what I have read, if there were more than the requisite number of persons nominated to stand, and often there would be no additional challengers, a show of hands would first be taken, and a result declared on that basis. If one of the nominated persons objected to the result, a poll would result and then the votes would be counted. How is the vote for these constituencies managed in say the United_Kingdom_general_election,_1895 page? Is the vote for the entire electorate placed into the pot for the winning party or are they left out entirly? Jooler 23:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
- Normally in British election result tables no figure is included for votes in constituencies which have not gone to a poll, as no votes were cast in those areas. No real records were kept of the show of hands (which I presume was done up until the introduction of the secret ballot) but only of a poll if one was demanded.
- I have a copy of the Constitutional Year Book 1900 where an attempt is made to include party support in uncontested constituencies, by crediting the party which won the seat with the whole registered electorate and adding that to the votes cast in other areas. I consider this a thoroughly flawed exercise, which produces no useful information. It is certainly not how modern results summaries are prepared. --Gary J 03:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Prime Ministers in Parliaments
I am being a bit pedantic but the linkage of PMs to Parliaments is not complete. There were cases of appointments in the latter stages of a Parliament which have not bern caught by the existing list e.g. Balfour resigned in 1905 without advising a dissolution so Campbell-Bannerman's Premiership started in the 1900 Parliament (before he asked for a dissolution). I also noticed that Eden's Premiership started in the 1951 Parliament, but he is only included in the table for the 1955 Parliament.
I suppose I will have to compare the dates of PMs appointments to dates of dissolutions to catch all these instances. --Gary J 03:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
