2005 United Kingdom general election: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 23:39, 5 May 2005
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The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on 5 May, 2005, just over three weeks after the dissolution of Parliament on 11 April by Queen Elizabeth II, at the request of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
The general election has been fought in 645 of the 646 constituencies in the United Kingdom, for seats in the House of Commons. The election is a first-past-the-post election. The party which wins the largest number of seats is likely to form the country's next government. Local elections in parts of England and in Northern Ireland are being held on the same day. The polls were open for 15 hours, from 0700 to 2200 BST (0600 to 2100 UTC).
The currently predicted result, according to the BBC and ITV, is a Labour majority of 66.
Results
Constituency Declarations
| Constituency | Time declared (BST) | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunderland South | 22:45 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Sunderland North | 23:25 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Houghton & Washington East | 23:32 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Rutherglen & Hamilton West | 23:57 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Barnsley Central | 00:17 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Rotherham | 00:26 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Vauxhall | 00:28 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Hull West & Hessle | 00:30 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Newcastle upon Tyne East & Wallsend | 00:35 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Newcastle upon Tyne Central | 00:35 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
| Putney | 00:35 | Template:British politics/party colours/Conservative| | Gain from Lab |
| Tyne Bridge | 00:35 | Template:British politics/party colours/Labour| | Hold |
Tyne Bridge
Result Summary
Notes
- ^ The number of MPs when Parliament was dissolved on April 11, 2005. The numbers differ from those at the 2001 election because of by-elections or defections that have occurred since that date.
- ^ The Liberal Democrats have announced that they will put up candidates in all seats except those held by the Speaker and the Independent MP for Wyre Forest and those in Northern Ireland.
- ^ The total number of people standing for Parliament not aligned to a political party.
- ^ Namely Richard Taylor (Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern), Jonathan Sayeed and Howard Flight (formerly Conservatives but had the whip withdrawn) and Paul Marsden (elected as Labour, joined the Liberal Democrats in December 2001, but resigned from them in April 2005).
- ^ The Speaker, along with three deputies, are elected Members of Parliament but do not vote. As traditionally happens, the Speaker stood at the 2001 election as "Speaker seeking re-election", while the Deputy Speakers fought in the name of their parties. In the above chart, Deputy Speaker Sylvia Heal is again counted with Labour, as are Deputy Speakers Alan Haselhurst and Michael Lord with the Conservatives; Speaker Michael Martin is treated separately. Although it is traditional that the Speaker's election is uncontested, in the past few decades Labour and the Liberal Democrats (and their predecessors) have stood against ex-Conservative Speakers, while Plaid Cymru and the SNP have stood against both ex-Conservative and ex-Labour Speakers. Candidates from other parties have also contested the Speaker on occasion.
- ^ The boundaries of parliamentary constituencies in Scotland will change at the election, and the number of seats in the House will decrease by 13 (see section Seats in Scotland). 645 constituencies will poll on May 5 — owing to the death of Jo Harrison, the nominated Liberal Democrat candidate for South Staffordshire, the general election in that constituency has been postponed; the delayed poll there will not be a by-election, as no new writ is issued.
Overview
The governing Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, will be looking to secure a third consecutive term in office and to retain its huge majority. The Conservative Party will be seeking to regain seats captured by both Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the 1997 election, and to replace Labour as the majority party. The Liberal Democrats themselves hope to make further gains from both sides and to become the Official Opposition, replacing the Conservatives.
Many seats will be contested by other parties. Parties with current representation at Westminster include the Democratic Unionist Party, Health Concern, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party, Sinn Féin (who do not take their seats as they will not swear the oath of allegiance), the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and the Ulster Unionist Party. Parties that are not represented at Westminster, but have seats in the devolved assemblies and European Parliament include the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom Independence Party, the various national Green parties, and the Scottish Socialist Party. A full list of parties having declared their intention to run can be found on the list of parties contesting the UK general election, 2005.
The election in one seat, Staffordshire South, was postponed because one of the candidates died after nominations closed.
Campaign trail
- For events leading up to the date of the election, see article: Pre-election day events of the United Kingdom general election, 2005
During the period between the announcement of the election and the actual election itself, all of the parties embark on intensive campaigns to win voters over. They do this by releasing manifestos, party political broadcasts and touring the country in buses (commonly referred to as "Battle Buses").
Seats in Scotland
When the Scottish Parliament was established by the Scotland Act 1998, the target size of Westminster Parliamentary seats in Scotland was changed to the same as that for England. This removed the deliberate over-representation intended to compensate Scotland for its historic status as a nation and its distance from the seat of Parliament in Westminster.
The Boundary Commission for Scotland therefore started work on redrawing the boundaries, and in 2003 produced a scheme in which there were 59 constituencies, reduced from 72. In 2004, the Government passed the Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004 which instituted these changes and broke the link between British- and Scottish-Parliamentary constituencies.
Although it is not possible to make a wholly accurate measurement of the strength of the parties within the 59 new constituencies, as this will be the first election in which they are used, estimates have been made on the basis of a ward-by-ward breakdown of local council election results. These projections indicate that, had the new boundaries been used in the 2001 election, Labour would have won 46 seats, with the Liberal Democrats on nine seats, the Scottish National Party on four, and the Conservatives on zero. This represents a loss of 10 seats to Labour and one each for the Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party and the Conservatives. The arithmetic is however complicated by the fact that the boundary revision has produced some seats that are notionally highly marginal.
See also the list of parties standing in Scotland.
The election in Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, the election looks likely to be dominated in the Unionist community by a battle between the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party to be the province's largest Unionist party in Parliament. Although the former won more MPs at the last General Election, defections have since reversed the position. Other elections in the province have shown both a shift in votes towards the DUP but also a collapse of support for the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland which is likely to be more marked in a first past the post election and thus which may work in the UUP's favour.
In the Nationalist community, the election battle between Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party will dominate. Recent elections have shown a clear shift in support from the SDLP to Sinn Féin but events such as the Northern Bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney have been used by Sinn Féin's opponents, including the British and Irish governments, to criticise their alleged links to the Provisional IRA, in the hope of reversing this trend.
Two of the three SDLP MPs elected in 2001 have retired while all four of Sinn Féin MPs are standing again. If Sinn Féin does make further gains, this will reduce the number of Northern Ireland MPs who vote in Westminster because Members of Parliament cannot formally take their seats until they swear allegiance to the Queen (which Sinn Féin members refuse to do).
Overall, if the Democratic Unionist Party emerges as the largest Unionist party and Sinn Féin as the largest Nationalist party, as expected, it will be interesting to see which of the two wins the most seats and most votes. However the electoral arithmetic, unless there is a catastrophic fall in Unionist turnout, would seem to favour the Democratic Unionist Party.
See also the list of parties standing in Northern Ireland.
Composition of the House of Commons
The House of Commons following the 2005 general election will contain 646 MPs (down from the current 659 due to the boundary changes mentioned above). This means that the results of the last election must be adjusted before they can be used as a guide to the parties' performance. Calculations taking into account the disappearance of 13 Scottish seats, but ignoring defections and by-elections, give the following notional composition for the old House of Commons:
Thus, the Labour Party's overall majority is 160. In most parliamentary votes, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) tends to side with the Labour Party (thus boosting their majority by 6), and when the non-presence of the Sinn Féin members is factored in, Labour's majority is as high as 170.
The following are a list of possible outcomes based on a national uniform swing to the Conservative Party of:
- < 6.5 %: Labour majority
- 6.5% - 8%: Hung parliament (Labour minority government)
- 8% - 9.5%: Hung parliament (Conservative minority government)
- > 9.5%: Conservative majority
In order for either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats to form a government (gain more than 50 percent of the seats available in the House of Commons) they need to take votes from Labour—even if every voter switched from (for example) the Conservatives to the Liberal Democats, this would result in Labour holding 323 seats, to the other party's 300 (Although models tend to break down in such extreme situations).
To show what a challenge they face to form the next government, the Liberal Democrats need to achieve a 17.8% uniform swing from Labour, assuming the Conservative vote remains static. Another interesting point is that based on a national uniform swing from the Labour Party to the Liberal Democrats, for every seat gained by the Liberal Democrats from Labour, Labour loses 4 seats to the Conservatives (again assuming the Conservative vote remains static).
According to the BBC's Election 2005 web site Swingometer: A 10.5% swing from Labour to the Conservatives is needed for the Conservatives to have an overall majority (which would be 14). A 24.0% swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats is needed for the Liberal Democrats to have an overall majority (which would be 36).
The Ballot
At the close of voting (2200 British Summer Time) the ballot boxes are sealed and returned to the counting centre where counting proceeds under the supervision of the returning officer who is obliged to declare the result as soon as it is known. There has been stiff competition amongst constituencies to be first to declare. Sunderland South has repeated its performance in the last three elections and declared Labour incumbent Chris Mullin re-elected as MP with a majority of 17,982 at approximately 2045 BST (failing by two minutes to beat its previous best, but entering the Guinness Book of World Records as longest consecutive delivery of first results). The vote itself represents a swing (in a safe Labour seat, in a safe Labour region) of approximately 4% to the Conservatives and 4.5% to the Liberal Democrats. This is somewhat below the prediction of BBC exit polls published shortly after 2200 BST. The constituency thus missed breaking the record for fastest results declaration by two minutes.
Houghton & Washington East were the next to declare, followed by Sunderland North, both Labour holds but with reductions in the incumbent majorities of up to 9%. The first Scottish seat to declare was Rutherglen and Hamilton West — another safe Labour seat, it too was a hold, but with a reduced majority by 4%. The first seat to change hands was Putney, where Labour's majority of around 2500 fell to a strong Conservative challenge, with a total swing of about 5000 (or 6.2%).
Exit polls
Initial projections (from a MORI exit poll for the BBC) polls saw the Labour party returned to power with a substantially reduced majority (66 down from 160). The projected shares of the vote were Labour 37% (down 5% on 2001), Conservatives 33% (unchanged), Liberal Democrats 22% (up 3%) and other parties 8% (up 2%). [7] The Conservatives are expected to make the biggest gains, however — forty-four seats according to the exit numbers — with the Liberal Democrats expected to take as few as two.
References
- 'The Media Guide to the New Scottish Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies' by David Denver, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Local Government Chronicle Elections Centre, Plymouth, 2004)
- "State of the Parties" at the Parliament of the United Kingdom website. Accessed 7 April, 2005.
- "The 2001 British General Election", MORI. Accessed 7 April, 2005.
External links
Media coverage
- BBC Election 2005
- Channel 4 - Election 2005
- The Guardian Election 2005 weblog
- The Guardian Politics - Special Report: Election 2005
- The Times Election 2005 Log
- Yahoo! News - Election 2005
Electoral information
- Electoral Calculus: If there were a General Election tomorrow, what would happen?
- UK Polling Report - analysis of polls on a day-by-day basis.
- Candidates by Party - All 3405 candidates listed by their 124 distinct party labels.
- SourceWatch's article on the 2005 UK general election - with a focus on the strategists and public relations experts involved in the campaigns of the various parties.
- Strategic Voter 2005 - Information for each constituency to strategically vote against the invasion of Iraq
Manifestos
- Conservatives: It's Time For Action/The British Dream
- DUP: Leadership That's Working (PDF File)
- Green Party of England and Wales: People, Planet, Peace
- Labour: Britain: forward not back
- Liberal Democrats: The REAL Alternative
- Scottish National Party: Make Scotland Matter (PDF file)
- Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales: We can build a better Wales (PDF file)
- Respect – The Unity Coalition: Policy
- Scottish Socialist Party: Make Capitalism History
- SDLP: A Better Way to a Better Ireland (PDF File)
- Sinn Fein: Manifesto
- Third Way: Radical Centre
- UUP: Simply British
- United Kingdom Independence Party: We want our country back
Web directories
- Democracies Online - UK Election 2005 Links Wiki
- LookSmart - UK 2005 General Election directory category
- Open Directory Project - UK Election 2005 directory category
- Political Science Resources: UK General Election Links to manifestos, polls and other sites
Betting
- bestbetting.com - compilation of latest betting companies odds
Miscellaneous
- Who should you vote for? - A tool to show which party's policies most closely match your priorities
- Who Do I Vote For? - An alternative tool to show which party's policies most closely match your opinions on 20 key policy areas
- The Christian Institute - Includes an election briefing that analyses party manifestos in the light of their perception of Christian beliefs