UK General Election Results The UK Public Probably Regretted

[EPG]

There's no such thing as public opinion, but having said that, nobody got what they wanted out of the 1929 election. Most of the other examples were at the ends of long periods of government, but being defeated at the next election doesn't mean people would rather have installed the then-opposition at the previous election. Voters are volatile, and duration in office is itself a liability as governments generate inevitable internal contradictions, which means it is hard to extrapolate past regret from future results. It seems odd that 1979 is being considered, given that the winning side's platform has prevailed in Britain ever since.

[EPG]

I think the British people would reverse almost every election after four years. Buyer's remorse: Supporters naturally regret the actions of their government as it inevitably acts in ways that alienate them. One can project an ideal scenario on the other crowd. (Some people always vote Labour or Conservative, but they don't matter at all for an analysis of how public opinion changes. We need to think about only the swinging voters in between.)

Of course, once you get to a election which is about who'll govern in the future as opposed to the past, the thought process changes. Eventually the British vote their government out when fatigue overtakes fear of change. This is harder because the opposition has to "win the future", which is a more criticial judgement and thought process than that involved in "winning the past".

Thus, I not only agree that we can't use future election successes to say whether people regret the government. I go further and say that the character of regret as a sentiment means voters can costlessly feel it as a way to balm their sorrows about how the government betrayed them by not delivering what they wanted, so most governments would have been regretted. Importantly, I don't think it means that they would have done any differently if placed again in their own shoes at the time of choosing!

Almost everyone who voted to oppose Margaret Thatcher in 1983 already opposed her four years before, and there were plenty of Alliance voters who resented Labour more than the Conservatives. Therefore, I am not sure this is a good example. Sure, she won a war, but there's no way to remove that kind of sentiment from people's thought processes in an effort to distil the pure critical-policy judgement.

[EPG]

Economic change insulated third parties from strikes in the 1980s more than the 1970s. Britain had more vans, trucks, big roads, and trade with other countries (even Poland). I don't think the unions lost from others' psychological readiness, as much as the migration of middle-earners away from manufacturing jobs associated with Empire, like making big ships, towards self-employment in many cases.

Back on topic... I think the 1923 election was another regretted one.

[EPG]

They regretted electing a parliament where no one party had a majority and wished that they had given a party a majority instead

A majority for Gordon Brown? Or David Cameron? Really? This is my point from discussions above - it's easy to observe that people aren't happy with a government, but I also don't think they would choose any realistic option that was available at the time. "Majority government, no matter the party", at the moment, just means "something different". We all want the perfect government of our dreams that we can imagine fulfilling all our hopes and hurting other people instead, but that's not an option in elections.