Election Night 1983 : The Anniversary

[Harry Hayfield]

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Thatcher landslide, BBC Parliament will be replaying the 1983 general election on Easter Monday (April 1st 2013) from 10.00am. I happen to have the 1979 notional election on this computer and will be adding it into a suitable programme so that as the results are announced I can do forecasts of the final result and was wondering if anyone would be interested in taking over Twitter with an #Election83 hashtag for the day?

If so, may I ask who would like to comment for (please copy and paste and add your Twitter handles):

Conservatives
Labour
Liberal Alliance
Social Democratic Alliance
Plaid Cymru
Scottish National Party
Any of the Northern Ireland Parties

The first forecast will come after Guildford and then a forecast every 65 seats.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I guess I'll have to wait for July 5, 2015 to celebrate a British election actually worth celebrating...

[Leftbehind]

I guess I'll have to wait for July 5, 2015 to celebrate a British election actually worth celebrating...

...and then spend the next five years despairing when he's even more timid than Hollande.

[You kip if you want to...]

I guess I'll have to wait for July 5, 2015 to celebrate a British election actually worth celebrating...

...and then spend the next five years despairing when he's even more timid than Hollande.

He meant the Attlee election's 70th.

[Leftbehind]

Oh. There's no footage of that!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually next year it'll be fifty years since Harold Wilson won in '64 (and forty since his comeback in '74).

[Leftbehind]

Hopefully we'll be treated to 64 and 74 (oct) as they've already shown 74 (feb) recently.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh. There's no footage of that!

Radio recording?

[RogueBeaver]

All I can say is

[Gary J]

As I recall, from reading the Nuffield election book about the 1955 election, that was the first general election the BBC broadcast in anything like a modern manner. Before that the corporation restricted itself with absurd rules about avoiding political controversy.

[Harry Hayfield]

That's quite right. Election 55 was indeed the first to be televised (and it also saw the first appearance of the swingometer). It was just for Southampton Itchen and Test but everything has to start somewhere. So does this mean then that no one was to real time tweet the election then as it is being replayed? If not, that's a shame really.

[Harry Hayfield]

Notional Election 1979 map

[You kip if you want to...]

I'd never considered how fast this was all over. Foot conceded before 2am.

Strange how the BBC is focusing near completely on the SDP and Labour.

[You kip if you want to...]

The crowd at the Finchley count laughing at Thatcher asserting that she's filled with "humility".

[You kip if you want to...]

So much smugness from the party which went from 50 in the polls to 25 in the space of 18 months. But I guess that's the SDP (or the LibDems, however the case may be) for you...

[MaxQue]

Was 1983 was the time of the Liberal-Social Democrat Alliance?

[You kip if you want to...]

Was 1983 was the time of the Liberal-Social Democrat Alliance?

Their first election

[You kip if you want to...]

Hattersley making the case that it'd could've been worst.

And that's why Labour were out for another 14 years. Also a potential mistake the party's made since 2010, but we'll have to wait and see on that one.

[countydurhamboy]

Watched all 11 hours of coverage, fascinating.  Now I know hindsight is overrated but I think the BBC coverage and especially the standard of the politicians is much worse now.

Without hindsight, I was surprised how moderate the Tories were. The wets like Prior, Gilmore and  Rippon came over well. The parties MP's views also surprised me, 35% of them in favour of an economic stimulus, hardly any of them wanting to cut welfare and not one Eurosceptic anywhere. They came across as competent and united. Unfortunately for Britain this wasn't the case and the party became a bunch of free market Crazies.

Labour came across as out of touch, and too busy squabbling over internal party matters than trying to help people. Only Kinnock seemed able to get the message across, I feel sorry Foot though, he seemed such a decent man.

The alliance were so irritating, especially Williams, in fact, I'm pleased the tory beat her. PR, PR, PR, how well they were going to do in 1987 election, and more PR. Thats all them and their friends in the BBC wanted to talk about. Not like there was anything else more important facing the county. You would have thought they had won the popular vote, or indeed the election.

It seems, somehow insulting to put it last, but Gerry Fitt gave a fine speech. I can't believe Belfast west chose Mr IRA Gerry Adams over him. What a courageous man!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My Mum has watched every election night (or at least significant parts of each) since 1964 and reckons that, yeah, coverage in 2010 was the worst ever.

[You kip if you want to...]

b]Without[/b] hindsight, I was surprised how moderate the Tories were. The wets like Prior, Gilmore and  Rippon came over well. The parties MP's views also surprised me, 35% of them in favour of an economic stimulus, hardly any of them wanting to cut welfare and not one Eurosceptic anywhere. They came across as competent and united. Unfortunately for Britain this wasn't the case and the party became a bunch of free market Crazies.

When you actually saw the raw results coming in for the Tories as well, it really hit home just why they probably won't win in 2015. Some of the stronger Tory seats are marginal at best these days exactly because of what you're saying here - just look at Finchley (and Golders Green, of course)!

That, and Labour's attitude immediately after 2010 was just completely different, but that goes without saying.

[countydurhamboy]

b]Without[/b] hindsight, I was surprised how moderate the Tories were. The wets like Prior, Gilmore and  Rippon came over well. The parties MP's views also surprised me, 35% of them in favour of an economic stimulus, hardly any of them wanting to cut welfare and not one Eurosceptic anywhere. They came across as competent and united. Unfortunately for Britain this wasn't the case and the party became a bunch of free market Crazies.

When you actually saw the raw results coming in for the Tories as well, it really home just why they probably won't win in 2015. Some of the stronger Tory seats are marginal at best these days exactly because of what you're saying here - just look at Finchley (and Golders Green, of course)!

That, and Labour's attitude immediately after 2010 was just completely different, but that goes without saying.

Yeah, I agree completely. You could also see beginnings of large scale tactical voting against them, in those southern results like Torbay.

[You kip if you want to...]

b]Without[/b] hindsight, I was surprised how moderate the Tories were. The wets like Prior, Gilmore and  Rippon came over well. The parties MP's views also surprised me, 35% of them in favour of an economic stimulus, hardly any of them wanting to cut welfare and not one Eurosceptic anywhere. They came across as competent and united. Unfortunately for Britain this wasn't the case and the party became a bunch of free market Crazies.

When you actually saw the raw results coming in for the Tories as well, it really home just why they probably won't win in 2015. Some of the stronger Tory seats are marginal at best these days exactly because of what you're saying here - just look at Finchley (and Golders Green, of course)!

That, and Labour's attitude immediately after 2010 was just completely different, but that goes without saying.

Yeah, I agree completely. You could also see beginnings of large scale tactical voting against them, in those southern results like Torbay.

And what's interesting is that 2010-15, Labour are winning back sections of the electorate that defected from them along with Williams, Jenkins, Rodgers and Owen and have sat there for what will be 32 years in 2015.

[Harry Hayfield]

Well, first of all, #Election83 TRENDED. In fact, it trended so much in the morning that the people who look after the explainations for trends asked me "Why is #Election83 trending?" and I replied "BBC Parliament is replaying the 1983 general election and people with an interest in the election are commenting on the results", on the downside though we started to get a heck of a lot of spam tweets at the same time.

As to the results (which I tried to tally in replay time but failed miserably), what appeared to have happened is that there was a small swing from Con to Lib (about 1%) but the real swing was from Lab to SDP (well over 8%) and it was that swing that Labour tried to get back over Elections 1987 and 1992 and it wasn't until Election 1997 that they could finally start to tackle the Con / Lab swing that would enable them to govern, so in hindsight the SDP are responsible for the Conservative governments of 1983, 1987 and 1992 (which I get from listening to the SDP founders was not what they were planning for)

[stepney]

so in hindsight the SDP are responsible for the Conservative governments of 1983, 1987 and 1992

That's a pretty simplistic, perhaps misleading, perhaps downright wrong rendering of why Thatcher and Major were able to win in 1983, 1987 and 1992. Even for 1983 it's plainly not right.

(which I get from listening to the SDP founders was not what they were planning for)