October 1974 United Kingdom general election in England

October 1974 United Kingdom general election in England

10 October 1974
All 516 English seats in the House of Commons 259 seats needed for English majority
First party Second party Third party   Lib Leader Harold Wilson Edward Heath Jeremy Thorpe Party Labour Conservative Liberal Leader since 14 February 1963 28 July 1965 18 January 1967 Leader's seat Huyton Sidcup North Devon Last election 237 seats, 37.7% 268 seats, 40.2% 9 seats, 21.3% Seats won 255 253 8 Seat change 18 15 1 Percentage 40.1% 38.9% 20.2% Swing 2.4% 1.3% 1.1%

The October 1974 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 10 October 1974 to elect 635 members of the House of Commons, of which 516 constituencies were in England. It was the second general election held that year.

While the Labour Party led by Prime Minister Harold Wilson clinched an overall narrow majority of 3 seats in the House of Commons, in England, the Labour Party won just two seats over the opposition Conservative Party led by Edward Heath.

This remains the last general election in which a party won an overall majority in the Commons without winning a majority of seats in England. Since this election, the Labour Party has won more seats in England only on 4 occasions- 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2024.

Result Table

Party	Seats won	Net change in seats	Total votes (in millions)	Voteshare	Change in voteshare
Labour	255	18	9.70	40.1%	2.4%
Conservative	253	15	9.41	38.9%	1.3%
Liberal	8	1	4.88	20.2%	1.1%

Parliament seats Labour   49.41% Conservative   49.03% Liberal   1.55%

References

1. Pilling, Sam; Cracknell, Richard (18 August 2021). "UK Election Statistics: 1918-2021: A Century of Elections" (PDF). House of Commons Library.
2. 1974 Oct: Wilson makes it four, BBC News, 5 April 2005
3. "10 October 1974", BBC Politics 97
4. Butler, David E.; et al. (1975), The British General Election of October 1974