1970 United Kingdom general election

The 1970 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 18 June 1970. It resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, which defeated the governing Labour Party under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The Liberal Party, under its new leader Jeremy Thorpe, lost half its seats. The Conservatives, including the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), secured a majority of 30 seats. This general election was the first in which people could vote from the age of 18, after passage of the Representation of the People Act the previous year, and the first UK election in which party affiliations of candidates were put on the ballots.

1970 United Kingdom general election

18 June 1970
All 630 seats in the House of Commons 316 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	72.0% (3.8 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Lib Leader Edward Heath Harold Wilson Jeremy Thorpe Party Conservative Labour Liberal Leader since 28 July 1965 14 February 1963 18 January 1967 Leader's seat Bexley Huyton North Devon Last election 253 seats, 41.9% 364 seats, 48.0% 12 seats, 8.5% Seats won 330 288 6 Seat change 77 75 6 Popular vote 13,145,123 12,208,758 2,117,035 Percentage 46.4% 43.1% 7.5% Swing 4.5% 4.9% 1.0%
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Composition of the House of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Harold Wilson Labour Prime Minister after election Edward Heath Conservative

Most opinion polls prior to the election indicated a comfortable Labour victory, and put Labour up to 12.4% ahead of the Conservatives. On election day, however, a late swing gave the Conservatives a 3.4% lead and ended almost six years of Labour government, although Wilson remained leader of the Labour Party in opposition. Writing in the aftermath of the election, the political scientist Richard Rose described the Conservative victory as "surprising" and noted a significant shift in votes between the two main parties. The Times journalist George Clark wrote that the election would be "remembered as the occasion when the people of the United Kingdom hurled the findings of the opinion polls back into the faces of the pollsters".

The result would provide the mandate for Heath as Prime Minister to begin formal negotiations for the United Kingdom to become a member state of the European Communities (EC)—or the "Common Market" as it was more widely known at the time, before it later became the European Union; the UK officially joined the EC on 1 January 1973, along with the Republic of Ireland and Denmark.

Frontbench Labour politicians George Brown and Jennie Lee were voted out at this election.

This marked the end of a series of elections where both main parties won over 40% of the vote. This would not occur again for the Conservatives for nine years; Labour would wait 27.

The result was cast as a two-party politics outcome, with no third party reaching 10% of the (total) vote. Such an outcome would not happen again until the 2017 election.

The election was the last in which a nationwide UK party gained seats in Northern Ireland. The UUP sat with the Conservative Party at Westminster, traditionally taking the Conservative parliamentary whip. To all intents and purposes the UUP functioned as the Northern Ireland branch of the Conservative Party. However, hardline unionist Ian Paisley unseated the UUP incumbent in North Antrim, a clear sign that the UUP's complete dominance over unionist politics in Northern Ireland was already starting to weaken. In 1972, in protest over the permanent prorogation of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, Westminster UUP MPs withdrew from the alliance.

Election date

The date of 18 June was supposedly chosen because Harold Wilson wanted as Prime Minister to go to the polls before the introduction of decimal coinage in early 1971, for which his government had been responsible and which he thought was hugely unpopular, and because Wilson sought to gain some momentum by surprising the Conservatives, who were expecting an October election.

Overview

Commentators believed that an unexpectedly bad set of balance of payments figures (a £31-million trade deficit) published three days before the election and a loss of national prestige after the England football team's defeat by West Germany on 14 June in the World Cup contributed to the Labour defeat.

Shadow Chancellor Iain Macleod campaigning in York.

Other factors that were cited as reasons for the Conservative victory included union indiscipline, rising prices, the risk of devaluation, the imposition of Selective Employment Tax (SET), and a set of jobless figures released on final week of the campaign showing unemployment at its highest level since 1940. Interviewed by Robin Day, the outgoing Prime Minister Harold Wilson highlighted the possibility that "complacency engendered by the opinion polls" may have resulted in a poor turnout of Labour supporters.

As defending world champions, England's venture in the World Cup attracted a much keener public interest than the general election did. However an analysis by pollster Matt Singh for the 50th anniversary of the election concluded that the late swing had been caused by the weak economic data and that there was "no evidence" that the World Cup had influenced the outcome.

American pollster Douglas Schoen and Oxford University academic R. W. Johnson asserted that Enoch Powell had attracted 2.5 million votes to the Conservatives, although the Conservative vote only increased by 1.7 million. Johnson later stated "It became clear that Powell had won the 1970 election for the Tories ... of all those who had switched their vote from one party to another, 50 per cent were working class Powellites". The Professor of Political Science Randall Hansen assessed a range of studies, including some which contended that Powell had made little or no difference to the result, but concluded that "At the very least, Powell's effect was likely to have fired up the Conservative vote in constituencies which would have voted Tory in any event". Election night commentators Michael Barratt and Jeffrey Preece dismissed any special "Powell factor", as did Conservative MPs Reginald Maudling, Timothy Raison and Hugh Dykes.

The 1970–74 Parliament has to date been the only time since the 1924–29 Parliament in which the Conservative Party were only in government for one term before returning to opposition.

The most notable casualty of the election was George Brown, deputy leader of the Labour Party, who lost to the Conservative candidate in the Belper constituency. Brown had held the seat since 1945. Labour Minister for the Arts, Jennie Lee lost her Cannock seat, held by Labour since 1935 on a swing of 10.7% to the Conservatives in what Richard Rose called "the biggest upset" of the election.

Unusually for the Liberal Party, the by-elections between 1966 and 1970 had proved almost fruitless, with many Liberal candidates losing deposits. The one exception was its by-election gain of Birmingham Ladywood in June 1969; this was promptly lost in the 1970 general election. The party found itself struggling to introduce its new leader Jeremy Thorpe to the public, owing to the extensive coverage and attention paid to Enoch Powell. The election result was poor for the Liberals, with Thorpe only narrowly winning his own seat in North Devon. Indeed, of the six MPs returned, three (Thorpe, David Steel and John Pardoe) were elected by a majority of less than 1,000 votes.

The BBC's election coverage was led by Cliff Michelmore, along with Robin Day, David Butler and Robert McKenzie. There were periodic cutaways to the BBC regions. This coverage has been rerun on BBC Parliament on several occasions, including on 18 July 2005 as a tribute to Edward Heath after his death the previous day. Its most recent screening was on the 20th of June 2020, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its first transmission. The BBC coverage was parodied by Monty Python's Flying Circus in its famous "Election Night Special" sketch.

Both BBC and ITN carried their 1970 election night broadcasts in colour, although segments broadcast from some remote locations and some BBC and ITN regional bureaus were transmitted in black-and-white. Some ITV regions were not yet broadcasting in colour at the time of the 1970 elections.

The right to vote in this election was widened by the Labour government's Sixth Reform Act, which reduced the voting age from 21 to 18 years. The United Kingdom was the first major democratic nation to extend suffrage to this age group. Case law subsequently established the right for undergraduate students to vote in the constituency of their university. This followed an appeal to the High Court.

Timeline

The Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, visited Buckingham Palace on 18 May and asked the Queen to dissolve Parliament on 29 May, announcing that the election would be held on 18 June. The key dates were as follows:

Friday 29 May	Dissolution of the 44th Parliament and campaigning officially begins
Monday 8 June	Last day to file nomination papers
Wednesday 17 June	Campaigning officially ends
Thursday 18 June	Polling day
Friday 19 June	The Conservative Party wins power with a majority of 31
Monday 29 June	45th Parliament assembles
Thursday 2 July	State Opening of Parliament

Opinion poll summary

Summary of the final polling results before the general election.

Party		Marplan	Gallup	National opinion polls (NOP)	Opinion Research Centre (OPC)	Harris
	Conservative	41.5%	42.0%	44.1%	46.5%	46.0%
	Labour	50.2%	49.0%	48.2%	45.5%	48.0%
	Liberal	7.0%	7.5%	6.4%	6.5%	5.0%
	Other parties	1.3%	1.5%	1.3%	1.5%	1.0%
Labour lead		8.7%	7.0%	4.1%	−1.0%	2.0%
Fieldwork dates		11–14 June	14–16 June	12–16 June	13–17 June	20 May – 16 June
Sample size		2,267	2,190	1,562	1,583	4,841

Results

This was the first general election where 18-year-olds had the right to vote. Therefore, despite 1.1 million more people voting in 1970 compared to 1966, turnout actually fell by 3%. This 72% turnout was the lowest since the 1935 general election and compared with a post-War high of 84% in 1950. Professor Richard Rose described the low turnout, which he noted was "one of the lowest since the introduction of the democratic franchise", as surprising to politician and pollsters. Changes to electoral law as part of the Representation of the People Act 1969 had made postal voting easier and polling stations were open an hour later than in past elections, and this would have been expected to improve turnout. On top of this it was reported by Rose that an estimated 25% of 18- to 21-year-olds who were now eligible to vote had not put their names on the electoral register, meaning the turnout was even lower than the percentage figure suggested. Rose also argued that the turnout figures in Britain were "now among the lowest in the Western world." Because the previous election had been in 1966, some people had not had their chance to vote in a general election until the age of 25. Labour's number of votes, 12.2 million, was ironically the same amount they had needed to win in 1964. The Conservative vote surge cost Labour in many marginal seats. Rose suggested the absolute fall in the number of Labour votes suggested that many of the party's supporters had decided to abstain. He also noted that the Labour Party's local organisation was poorer than that of the Conservatives, but did not feel this was a significant factor in Labour supporters failing to come out to vote for the Party given that this organisational difference had been the case in past elections without having this effect. For the Liberals, a small 1% drop in their vote share saw them lose 6 seats, 3 of which were held by the narrowest of margins.

In the end the Conservatives achieved a swing of 4.7%, enough to give them a comfortable working majority. As for the smaller parties, they increased their number in the Commons from 2 to 6 seats.

The Scottish National Party won its first ever seat at a general election (they had won several by-elections previously, going back as far as 1945), although they did lose Hamilton, which they won in a by-election in 1967.

UK General Election 1970

All parties shown.

			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Stood	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Conservative	Edward Heath	628	330	80	3	+77	52.4	46.4	13,145,123	+4.5
	Labour	Harold Wilson	625	288	1	77	−76	45.7	43.1	12,208,758	−4.9
	Liberal	Jeremy Thorpe	332	6	0	6	−6	1.0	7.5	2,117,035	−1.0
	SNP	William Wolfe	65	1	1	0	+1	0.2	1.1	306,802	+0.6
	Plaid Cymru	Gwynfor Evans	36	0	0	0	0		0.6	175,016	+0.4
	Unity	N/A	5	2	2	0	+2	0.3	0.50	140,930	N/A
	Independent	N/A	40	0	0	0	0		0.1	39,264	0.0
	Communist	John Gollan	58	0	0	0	0		0.1	37,970	−0.1
	Protestant Unionist	Ian Paisley	2	1	1	0	+1	0.2	0.1	35,303	N/A
	Republican Labour	Gerry Fitt	1	1	0	0	0	0.2	0.1	30,649	N/A
	Independent Labour	N/A	3	1	1	0	+1	0.2	0.1	24,685	+0.1
	Ind. Conservative	N/A	8	0	0	0	0		0.1	24,014	+0.1
	Democratic Party	Desmond Donnelly	5	0	0	0	0		0.1	15,292	N/A
	National Democratic	David Brown	4	0	0	0	0		0.1	14,276	N/A
	National Front	John O'Brien	10	0	0	0	0		0.0	11,449	N/A
	National Democratic	Gerry Quigley	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	10,349	N/A
	Vectis National Party	R. W. Cawdell	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,607	N/A
	Independent Liberal	N/A	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,456	0.0
	World Government	Gilbert Young	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,016	N/A
	Mebyon Kernow	Len Truran	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	960	N/A
	Ind. Labour Party	Emrys Thomas	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	847	0.0
	British Movement	Colin Jordan	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	704	N/A
	Independent Progressive		1	0	0	0	0		0.0	658	N/A
	Socialist (GB)	N/A	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	376	0.0
	Young Ideas	Screaming Lord Sutch	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	142	N/A
	British Commonwealth		1	0	0	0	0		0.0	117	N/A

Government's new majority	30
Total votes cast	28,305,534
Turnout	72%

Votes summary

Popular vote Conservative   46.44% Labour   43.13% Liberal   7.48% SNP   1.08% Others   1.86%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats Conservative   52.38% Labour   45.71% Liberal   0.95% SNP   0.16% Others   0.79%

Televised declarations

These declarations were covered live by the BBC where the returning officer was heard to say "duly elected".

From BBC Parliament Replay

Constituency	Winning party 1966		Constituency result by party				Winning party 1970
			Con	Lab	Lib	Others
Guildford		Conservative	27,203	13,108	8,822			Conservative hold
Cheltenham		Conservative	22,823	14,213	8,431			Conservative hold
Salford West		Labour	14,310	16,986				Labour hold
Wolverhampton North East		Labour	15,358	17,251		1,592		Labour hold
Salford East		Labour	9,583	15,853	3,000			Labour hold
Wolverhampton South West		Conservative	26,252	11,753	2,459	318		Conservative hold
Newcastle upon Tyne Central		Labour	4,256	13,671	1,433			Labour hold
Newcastle upon Tyne North		Conservative	15,978	12,518				Conservative hold
Exeter		Labour	21,680	20,409	6,672			Conservative gain
North Devon		Liberal	18,524	5,268	18,893	175		Liberal hold
West Aberdeenshire		Liberal	18,396	6,141	12,847	2,112		Conservative gain

Incumbents defeated

Party		Name	Constituency	Office held whilst in Parliament or by-election	Defeated by	Party
	Labour	Donald Dewar	Aberdeen South		Iain Sproat		Conservative
		Edwin Brooks	Bebington		Eric Cockeram		Conservative
		Brian Parkyn	Bedford		Trevor Skeet		Conservative
		Gwilym Roberts	Bedfordshire South		David Madel		Conservative
		George Brown	Belper	Deputy Leader of the Labour Party	Geoffrey Stewart-Smith		Conservative
		Eric Moonman	Billericay		Robert McCrindle		Conservative
		Christopher Price	Birmingham Perry Barr		Joseph Kinsey		Conservative
		Ioan Evans	Birmingham Yardley	Comptroller of the Household	Derek Coombs		Conservative
		Robert Howarth	Bolton East		Laurance Reed		Conservative
		Gordon Oakes	Bolton West		Robert Redmond		Conservative
		Woodrow Wyatt	Bosworth		Adam Butler		Conservative
		Norman Haseldine	Bradford West		John Wilkinson		Conservative
		Colin Jackson	Brighouse and Spenborough		Wilfred Proudfoot		Conservative
		Dennis Hobden	Brighton Kemptown		Andrew Bowden		Conservative
		Raymond Dobson	Bristol North East	Assistant Whip	Robert Adley		Conservative
		John Ellis	Bristol North West		Martin McLaren		Conservative
		Robert Maxwell	Buckingham		William Benyon		Conservative
		Jennie Lee	Cannock	Minister for the Arts	Patrick Cormack		Conservative
		Ted Rowlands	Cardiff North		Michael Roberts		Conservative
		Alistair Macdonald	Chislehurst		Patricia Hornsby-Smith		Conservative
		Ednyfed Hudson Davies	Conway		Wyn Roberts		Conservative
		David Winnick	Croydon South		Richard Thompson		Conservative
		Sydney Irving	Dartford	Chairman of Ways and Means	Peter Trew		Conservative
		David Ennals	Dover	Minister of State for Social Services	Peter Rees		Conservative
		Stan Newens	Epping		Norman Tebbit		Conservative
		Gwyneth Dunwoody	Exeter	Parliamentary Secretary at the Board of Trade	John Hannam		Conservative
		John Dunwoody	Falmouth and Camborne		David Mudd		Conservative
		Terence Boston	Faversham		Roger Moate		Conservative
		John Diamond	Gloucester	Chief Secretary to the Treasury	Sally Oppenheim		Conservative
		Albert Murray	Gravesend	Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport	Roger White		Conservative
		Ben Whitaker	Hampstead	Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Overseas Development	Geoffrey Finsberg		Conservative
		Roy Roebuck	Harrow East		Hugh Dykes		Conservative
		Peter Jackson	High Peak		Spencer Le Marchant		Conservative
		Alan Lee Williams	Hornchurch		John Loveridge		Conservative
		Arnold Shaw	Ilford South		Albert Cooper		Conservative
		Dingle Foot	Ipswich	Solicitor General for England and Wales	Ernle Money		Conservative
		John Binns	Keighley		Joan Hall		Conservative
		John Page	King's Lynn		Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler		Conservative
		Stanley Henig	Lancaster		Elaine Kellett-Bowman		Conservative
		Harold Davies	Leek	Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister	David Knox		Conservative
		James Dickens	Lewisham West		John Gummer		Conservative
		William Howie	Luton	Comptroller of the Household	Charles Simeons		Conservative
		Jeremy Bray	Middlesbrough West		John Sutcliffe		Conservative
		Denis Coe	Middleton and Prestwich		Alan Haselhurst		Conservative
		Donald Anderson	Monmouth		John Stradling Thomas		Conservative
		Bert Hazell	Norfolk North		Ralph Howell		Conservative
		George Perry	Nottingham South		Norman Fowler		Conservative
		John Horner	Oldbury and Halesowen		John Stokes		Conservative
		Evan Luard	Oxford		Montague Woodhouse		Conservative
		Ronald Atkins	Preston North		Mary Holt		Conservative
		Peter Mahon	Preston South		Alan Green		Conservative
		John Lee	Reading		Gerard Vaughan		Conservative
		Anne Kerr	Rochester and Chatham		Peggy Fenner		Conservative
		Antony Gardner	Rushcliffe		Kenneth Clarke		Conservative
		Frank Hooley	Sheffield Heeley		John Spence		Conservative
		Bob Mitchell	Southampton Test		James Hill		Conservative
		Arnold Gregory	Stockport North		Idris Owen		Conservative
		Ernest Davies	Stretford		Winston Churchill		Conservative
		Gerald Fowler	The Wrekin		Anthony Trafford		Conservative
		John Ryan	Uxbridge		Charles Curran		Conservative
		Malcolm Macmillan	Western Isles		Donald Stewart		Scottish National Party
		Hugh Gray	Yarmouth		Anthony Fell		Conservative
	Conservative	Kenneth Baker	Acton	Elected in the 1968 Acton by-election	Nigel Spearing		Labour
		Donald Williams	Dudley	Elected in the 1968 Dudley by-election	John Gilbert		Labour
		Esmond Wright	Glasgow Pollok	Elected in the 1967 Glasgow Pollok by-election	James White		Labour
		Bruce Campbell	Oldham West	Elected in the 1968 Oldham West by-election	Michael Meacher		Labour
		Christopher Ward	Swindon	Elected in the 1969 Swindon by-election	David Stoddart		Labour
		Fred Silvester	Walthamstow West	Elected in the 1967 Walthamstow West by-election	Eric Deakins		Labour
	Liberal	Wallace Lawler	Birmingham Ladywood	Elected in the 1969 Birmingham Ladywood by-election	Doris Fisher		Labour
		Michael Winstanley	Cheadle		Tom Normanton		Conservative
		Richard Wainwright	Colne Valley		David Clark		Labour
		Eric Lubbock	Orpington	Liberal Chief Whip	Ivor Stanbrook		Conservative
		Alasdair Mackenzie	Ross and Cromarty		Hamish Gray		Conservative
	Ulster Unionist	Henry Clark	Antrim North		Ian Paisley		Democratic Unionist
		James Hamilton	Fermanagh and South Tyrone		Frank McManus		Unity
	Scottish National Party	Winnie Ewing	Hamilton	Elected in the 1967 Hamilton by-election	Alex Wilson		Labour
	Plaid Cymru	Gwynfor Evans	Carmarthen	Elected in the 1966 Carmarthen by-election	Gwynoro Jones		Labour
	Democratic Party	Desmond Donnelly	Pembrokeshire	Former Labour MP	Nicholas Edwards		Conservative

See also

• List of MPs elected in the 1970 United Kingdom general election
• 1970 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
• 1970 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
• 1970 United Kingdom local elections

Further reading

• Butler, David E.; et al. (1971), The British General Election of 1970, the standard scholarly study.
• Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302

External links

• United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979 Archived 23 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine

Manifestos

• A Better Tomorrow, 1970 Conservative Party manifesto
• Now Britain's strong – let's make it great to live in, 1970 Labour Party manifesto
• What a Life!, 1970 Liberal Party manifesto