British General Election constituency maps 1955-2001 (New)

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One thing to note about the 1983 campaign: There was a big swing from Labour to the Alliance in the last two weeks or so, which probably allowed the Tories to win a bigger majority than they otherwise would have done. Oh, and isn't it interesting that the Labour and Alliance vote shares weren't all that different to the 2010 Labour and Lib Dem vote shares?

And the Tories winning 37% in a amazing year for them as opposed to 43% says so much about what's been happening in the country since 1983 as well.

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Labour/Alliance map for 1983 (probably a good few mistakes). Going through the 1983 results, it's astonishing that Labour won a lot of the seats that they did in 1997 - they were on life support here.

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Amazing that the Alliance held on to the Isle of Wight in 1983.  That seat is a Tory/Lib swing seat with a Tory lean, no?  Was it all due to... (checks Wikipedia)... Steve Ross's personal popularity?

There was a pretty huge national swing to the Liberals. The Tories actually lost % nation wide. 1983 wasn't exactly a good election for the Tories, just a horrific one for Labour - such is distorted by FPTP.