Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to consider the performance of the Conservative Party in the General Elections of 1974. Having secured 13,145,123 votes on a 46.4 percent vote share at the General Election of June 1970 (which provided them with 330 parliamentary seats), the Conservative Party would fall to 11,872,180 votes (a 37.9 percent vote share and 297 parliamentary seats) at the General Election of February 1974. A further erosion in the Conservative vote would occur at the General Election of October 1974, as they fell to 277 parliamentary seats on a 35.8 percent vote share and 10,464,817 votes. In parliamentary terms, their respective electoral reversals were marginal, that is, the Labour Party entered government as a minority administration in March 1974 and then with a majority of three after the October General Election. This reflected the fact that voters were displaying their scepticism towards the two main parties.
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Notes
- 1.
King felt that ‘the Conservatives not only lost the February 1974 election but suffered one of the most dramatic reversals in British electoral history’ (King 1985: 99).
- 2.
The Liberal vote was up from 2,117,035 votes or 7.5 percent from June 1970 to 6,059,519 or 19.3 percent (Butler and Kavanagh 1974).
- 3.
Bogdanor argued that it ‘was at this point that her hostility to Heath as a traitor to Conservatism crystallised’, as Heath was ‘prepared to sacrifice any chance of the Conservatives ever again achieving an overall majority on their own for the mere temporary renewal of power’ (Bogdanor 1996: 373).
- 4.
Prior recalls that had Heath attempted to pursue this further, the Conservative Party would have ‘split’ (Prior 1986: 95).
- 5.
An example of this would be the seat of Lewisham West. The Conservatives had lost this seat at the General Election of February 1974 with 18,716 votes compared to Labour’s 21,118 votes. The Liberals had come third on 7974 votes. The electoral pact suggested would assume that if the Liberals did not stand then enough of the freed up Liberal vote would transfer across to the Conservatives for them to regain the constituency (i.e. the combined Conservative and Liberal vote would take them to 26,690 votes). However, if the Liberal vote fragmented with 60 percent of them breaking for the Conservatives (i.e. 4784) and 40 percent of them for Labour (i.e. 3189), then the pact would fail, with Labour winning the constituency with 24,307 votes to the Conservatives on 23,500 votes. In the General Election of October 1974, both the Liberals and Conservatives stood and both saw their vote shrink—the Conservatives down to 15,573 from 18,716 votes and the Liberals down to 5952 from 7974 votes, whilst the Labour vote was stable, down from 21,118 to 21,102 (Butler and Kavanagh 1974, 1975).
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Roe-Crines, A.S. (2021). Who Governs? The General Election Defeats of 1974. In: Roe-Crines, A.S., Heppell, T. (eds) Policies and Politics Under Prime Minister Edward Heath. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53673-2_15
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