U.K election maps

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ah, so the Tories didn't run against him either? Now I see why this is confusing.

Exactly; I don't know anything about him... I'll have to see if he ran again in '64 and who for...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The very, very dark blue one is Kinross & West Perthshire (I think it was the safest Tory seat in the country that year... or was it beaten by Richmond (NR, Yorks)? Or Kensington South? Hmm...). Clacks is just south of that... it's the darkish red seat seperated in two by Falkirk.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yep; things got very confused in 1974 when Dunbartonshire got *three* seats...

[Peter]

Wikipedia has full election data for the full life of Caithness and Sutherland:

Constituency page

As a side note, just look at 1945 - that surely has to be a record of some kind. I have no idea what was used as a source, but the generally accepted source for pre-50 results is Craig's series of books. 50 and after is often based on www.psr.keele.ac.uk which uses The Times and Whitakers Almanack as its sources, which presumably means that data is double checked.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wikipedia has full election data for the full life of Caithness and Sutherland:

Constituency page

Ah; interesting.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'm pretty sure that it is... must have been seen as a bit of an upset actually.
IIRC the defeated Liberal that year is some relation of the current M.P for the seat.

[afleitch]

Wiki is eveloving intoa  good source. It is interesting to read about the university seats and the 'Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds'

[Peter]

IIRC the defeated Liberal that year is some relation of the current M.P for the seat.

Correct, he is the grandfather. Alistair Sinclair was created Viscount Thurso in 52 after he had been ejected from the Commons. His grandson is also Viscount Thurso but has not had to disclaim as Viscount Stansgate did because hereditary peers no longer receive automatic seats.

Wiki is eveloving intoa  good source. It is interesting to read about the university seats and the 'Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds'

It is quite variable - some areas are quite thorough, such as Surrey (some nutcase with too much time on his hands is responsible for that), whilst other areas like Shropshire are quite sparse, mostly because they haven't discovered computers there yet.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

whilst other areas like Shropshire are quite sparse, mostly because they haven't discovered computers there yet.

Is that a hint?

I was thinking about doing something about that actually... hmm...

[Peter]

whilst other areas like Shropshire are quite sparse, mostly because they haven't discovered computers there yet.

Is that a hint?

I was thinking about doing something about that actually... hmm...

There's a guide and some vague attempt to co-ordinate our efforts linked from this page, though don't worry yourself too much about some of the more pernickety rules. If you need any help, I'll be happy to point you in the right direction (if it exists, which it probably doesn't - Just remember, there are 1 million articles on wikipedia, but 2 million administrative pages, thats what I call bureaucracy)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Can you do February 1974?

[minionofmidas]

He has, the very opening post of this thread in fact.

[minionofmidas]

OK time for 1966.
And as soon as it's possible I want to see the 22/23/24 trifecta.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He has, the very opening post of this thread in fact.

Hmm, for some reason I didn't pay attention to the date on it.

How about October?

[minionofmidas]

He has, the very opening post of this thread in fact.

Hmm, for some reason I didn't pay attention to the date on it.

How about October?

We haven't had that one yet.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Three times in the 20th century there were huge, huge anti-Tory landslides with longterm implications for just about everything. The most recent was 1997...



Obviously there isn't enough room hear to do justice to this election... so to give an understanding of the sheer scale of the Tory rout and the Labour landslide, compare this map to the 1992 one. And remember that the Labour leadership didn't actually think they would win a landslide (assuming that the last minute anti-Labour swings of 1992 etc. would repeat themselves)...

[minionofmidas]

This map should have been titled "thingscanonlygetbetter.png".

[Harry Hayfield]

In case anyone is a bit mystified about the map's title "1945 in space" it comes from a conversation between Neil Kinnock (then EU Commissioner) and Lord Callaghan (who died in 2005) during the 1997 Election programme on the BBC. I think it was Lord Callaghan who coined the phrase but will have to check my tape from BBC Parliament to find out.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Callaghan said it IIRC. Good line either way. "thingscanonlygetbetter.png" is reserved for a different map...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And now for 1964...



The reason for doing this one now should be quite obvious (and if you don't know, have a look at the filename).

1964 was one of the most important and interesting elections of the 20th century... it was marked by both major trends (such as the strong movement towards Labour in Northern industrial towns and the fact that Labour couldn't *quite* crack more than just a few Southern marginals) and things that didn't last but are very important all the same; the obvious one of those is the wave of racist voting in the West Midlands and in parts of the South East; the most infamous result from that trend was the defeat of Shadow Foreign Secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, to a nasty racist turd who ran on the following slogan: "if want a n*gger neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour", in Smethwick. Similer things happend in Birmingham Perry Barr and also Eton & Slough, and very nearly happend in Southall.
Two other things to note; first one is the fact that many seats lost by the Tories in 1964 have never been regained... and the second is the resounding defeat of "star" Tory candidate Ted Dexter in Cardiff SE at the hands of Jim Callaghan.

[Serenity Now]

Where was patrick Gordon Walkers seat?

I believe Wilson's "presige seat" of Brighton Kemptown (little light pink one on the coast directly south of London, for anyone who doesn't know) was the most marginal in the country? Labour won it by only around something like 7 votes. Apparently many senior members of the local Tory party didn't vote as they were so confident of victory that they decided to celebrate instead... gutted!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Where was patrick Gordon Walkers seat?

Smethwick is at the eastern extreme of the Black Country; it borders and (please don't tell the locals this bit if you want to live) basically merges in with Birmingham. It was renamed "Warley East" at some point ('74 IIRC) and, after being expanded, became just "Warley" in 1997. It's current M.P is John Spellar (previously M.P for the abolished Warley West seat; most of which is now in Halesowen & Rowley Regis) who despite being a Londoner (if Bromley counts as London) is a very good fit for the area, ideology-wise (he's not *exactly* socially liberal...).
On this map it's the light-ish blue north of the very dark blue Birmingham Edgbaston and sandwiched between two pale pink Black Country seats.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yep; 7 votes it was and the most marginal of the election. Joint 11th most marginal result since 1918 and the first time Labour had ever won a seat in Sussex.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Јas]

Yep; 7 votes it was and the most marginal of the election. Joint 11th most marginal result since 1918 and the first time Labour had ever won a seat in Sussex.

Any chance of a rundown on the top 10?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yep; 7 votes it was and the most marginal of the election. Joint 11th most marginal result since 1918 and the first time Labour had ever won a seat in Sussex.

Any chance of a rundown on the top 10?

According to election.demon.co.uk (best site for U.K elections on the net, btw) they are...

1. Ilkeston (1931; National Labour) and Winchester (1997; LibDem) 2 votes.
3. Tiverton (1923; Liberal), Carmarthen (1974Feb; Labour) and Peterborough (1966; Tory) 3 votes.
7. Northwich (1929; Tory) and Worcester (1945; Tory) 4 votes.
9. Caithness & Sutherland (1945; Tory) and Sedgefield (1923; Tory) 6 votes.

Interestingly the most marginal seat of an election isn't always the one people *remember* as being the most marginal; most people think that Bob Cryer's Keighley was the most marginal seat in 1979, when it was actually the old Preston North.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And now for 1970:



1. Although often thought of as an upset, if you take a long view the only suprising thing about 1970 was that it was as close as it was; throughout the 1966-1970 Parliament, Labour's popularity went into total meltdown and at the low point in 1968 were probably less popular than the Major Tories in the '90's. There had been a recovery in the popularity of the Government as it finally got out of the economic mess left to it by the Douglas-Home administration.
Polling day was a few days (or a day? can't quite recall which...) after a key England game in the 1970 World Cup; [in]famously the England goalkeeper was too ill to play, England were knocked out of the contest and working class voters got all depressed lowering their turnout by quite a lot. The old legend is that if Gordon Banks had played, Ted Heath would never have become P.M.
2. Enoch Powell and racial tensions in general played a disturbingly large role in the election result (especially in the West Midlands) but it's important not to exaggerate this. It's very unlikely that Powellism gave Heath his victory (note that (despite large swings) Powell couldn't even drag in the other two Wolverhampton seats in on his Rivers of Blood). The main reason for that was probably...
3... demographic changes in certain marginal seats. Labour were badly hurt in certain small town seats like Cannock, Bosworth, Leek, Dartford and (of course) Belper, by the growth of suburban and commuterville developments, while the impact of the collapse of agricultural employment as a result of mechanisation was devasting to the Party in many rural areas (especially in Norfolk).
4. Interesting results include Rossendale (Tony Greenwood retired, and with him went his personal vote), Cannock (where Jennie Lee was literally built out of her seat), Cardigan (where somehow, and I don't know how, the soft-Nat Labour M.P managed to fluke another term), Dudley (where Labour regained a by-election loss despite Powell), Merthyr Tydfil (where longserving Labour M.P S.O.Davies was deselected, ran as an Independent Labour candidate and won by a country mile) and of course... Belper. The irony of Belper is that had the new constituency boundaries not been delayed, Brown would have won.

[Voice from the South West]

Of course something which you didn't mention Al was that 1970 was a disastrous year for the Liberals. If you include Birmingham Ladywood (a seat they won in a by-election) they lost 7 of their 13 seats with Thorpe only scraping home by just 300 votes in North Devon. Even Wainwright lost Coln Valley to Labour against the national tide (though it always was a funny seat).

Its always interesting to see how the South West swings between the Tories and the Liberals/Lib Dems during good and bad Tory years - compare Torrington with 1964/66 for example - which reinforces my suspicions that 2009/10 will not be a good year for the Lib Dems if the Tories recover.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course something which you didn't mention Al was that 1970 was a disastrous year for the Liberals.

Ah yes; that's true, it was a dire election for them. They lost pretty much all the small "l" liberal fiscal conseratives that had been drifting towards them for most of the '60's; the loss of Orpington was probably as significant as it's gain a few years earlier. I do sometimes wonder what would have happend if they'd elected Lubbock as leader rather than Thorpe...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would rather not like to remember the grotesque personality cult of Wallace Lawler...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Still is a funny area; the sheer amount of ticket splitting that people get up to there beggers belief...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It does seem to (it might have something to do with a cycle of protest voting) although as time goes by the politics of the area is getting increasingly fragmented and confused. There's half a chance that the LibDems might end up collapsing in on themselves.

[minionofmidas]

Ah, yeah, Elastan Morgan. Had a number of close elections either way IIRC... in two or three different seats...