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1970 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

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1970 United Kingdom general election

← 1966

All 71 Scottish seats to the House of Commons
  First party Second party
 
Leader Harold Wilson Edward Heath
Party Labour Conservative
Last election 46 seats, 49.9% 20 seats, 37.6%
Seats won 44 23
Seat change Decrease2 Increase3
Popular vote 1,197,068 1,020,674
Percentage 44.5% 38.0%
Swing Decrease5.4% Increase0.4%

  Third party Fourth party
 
Lib
SNP
Leader Jeremy Thorpe William Wolfe
Party Liberal SNP
Last election 5 seats, 6.8% 0 seats, 5.0%
Seats won 3 1
Seat change Decrease2 Increase1
Popular vote 147,667 306,802
Percentage 5.5% 11.4%
Swing Decrease1.3% Increase6.4%

Results of the 1970 election in Scotland

A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday 18 June 1970 and all 71 seats in Scotland were contested.[1] The Labour Party won the most seats for the fourth consecutive election, whilst the Scottish National Party won a seat for the first time in a general election, having won their first ever Westminster seat at the 1945 Motherwell by-election and another shock victory in the Hamilton by-election in 1967.[2]

MPs

[edit]

List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1970–February 1974)

Results

[edit]
Party Seats Seats
change
Votes % %
change
Labour 44 Decrease 2 1,197,068 44.5 Decrease 5.4
Conservative 23 Increase3 1,020,674 38.0 Increase 0.4
SNP 1 Increase 1 306,802 11.4 Increase 6.4
Liberal 3 Decrease2 147,667 5.5 Decrease1.3
Other 0 Steady 16,024 0.6 Steady
Turnout: 2,688,235

Votes summary

[edit]
Popular vote
Labour
44.53%
Conservative
37.97%
SNP
11.41%
Liberal
5.49%
Other
0.60%
Parliament seats
Labour
61.97%
Conservative
32.39%
Liberal
4.22%
SNP
1.40%

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Commons results report" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 November 2020.
  2. ^ Baldi, Gregory (14 October 2022). "Politics without society: explaining the rise of the Scottish National Party". British Politics. 18 (3): 342–363. doi:10.1057/s41293-022-00215-w. ISSN 1746-918X. PMC 9561324. PMID 38625219.