British General Election 1929

← 1924General election
19291931 →

(in %)

 %

40

30th

20th

10

0

38.1

37.1

23.6

1.2

Tories

Labor

Liberals

Otherwise.

Gains and losses

compared to 1924

 % p

   6th

   4th

   2

   0

  -2

  -4

  -6

  -8th

-10

-8.7

+3.8

+5.8

-0.9

Tories

Labor

Liberals

Otherwise.

287

59

9

260

287 59 9 260 

A total of 615 seats

• Labor : 287
• Liberals : 59
• Otherwise: 9
• Tories : 260

The British general election in 1929 took place on May 30, 1929 and did not result in a clear majority. The Labor Party won the most seats (287), while the Conservative Party gained one percentage point more votes. The Liberal Party was able to make up for part of its losses in the previous election; it had 59 of the 615 seats and was important as a majority funder. Its chairman was David Lloyd George from 1926 to 1931 , who had been Prime Minister from December 1916 to 1922 (details here ).

Until 1929 the Conservative Stanley Baldwin had been Prime Minister. The Baldwin government was shaken by crises throughout its tenure: the strike from May to November 1926, the rapidly deteriorating economic situation, a sharp rise in the unemployment rate. Lloyd George and the Liberals decided after the 1929 general election to support a Labor minority government under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald . He had already been Prime Minister from January to November 1924 .

MacDonald's government failed in the fall of 1931 (see here ); on October 27, 1931 there was again a general election.

Electoral system

The majority vote was used . There was no threshold clause . After the change in voting rights in 1928, women between the ages of 21 and 29 were also eligible to vote for the first time.

Election result

Political party		be right			Seats
		number	%	+/-	number	+/-
	Conservative party	8,252,527	38.1	−8.7	260	−152
	Labor Party	8,048,968	37.1	+3.8	287	+138
	Liberal party	5,104,638	23.6	+5.8	59	+19
	Independent	94,743	0.4	-	4th	-
	Communist Party of Great Britain	47,554	0.2	−0.1	-	−1
	Independent Conservative	46.278	0.2	-	-	-
	Scottish Prohibition Party	25,037	0.1	-	1	-
	Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland)	24,177	0.1	+0.1	3	+3
	Independent Labor	20,825	0.1	-	1	-
	Independent liberal	17.110	0.1	-	-	-
	National Party of Scotland	3,313	0.0	-	-	-
	Plaid Cymru	609	0.0	-	-	-
	total	21,685,779	100.0		615
Eligible voters		28,854,748
voter turnout		76.3%
Source:

See also

• United Kingdom Political System

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} General Election Results 1885–1979 United Kingdom Election Results (English)
2. ↑ Flapper Vote , in: June Hannam, Mitzi Auchterlonie, Katherine Holden: International encyclopedia of women's suffrage . Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio, 2000, ISBN 1-57607-064-6 , pp. 101f.