From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
October 1974 United Kingdom general election
|
|
|
|
Turnout
| 72.8%,
6.0%
|
---|
|
First party
|
Second party
|
|
|
|
Leader
|
Harold Wilson
|
Edward Heath
|
Party
|
Labour
|
Conservative
|
Leader's seat
|
Huyton
|
Sidcup
|
Last election
|
301 seats, 37.2%
|
297 seats, 37.9%
|
Seats won
|
319
|
277
|
Seat change
|
18
|
20
|
Popular vote
|
11,457,079
|
10,462,565
|
Percentage
|
39.2%
|
35.8%
|
Swing
|
2.0%
|
2.1%
|
|
|
Third party
|
Fourth party
|
|
|
|
Leader
|
Jeremy Thorpe
|
William Wolfe
|
Party
|
Liberal
|
SNP
|
Leader's seat
|
North Devon
|
Stood in
West Lothian
(lost)
|
Last election
|
14 seats, 19.3%
|
7 seats, 2.0%
|
Seats won
|
13
|
11
|
Seat change
|
1
|
4
|
Popular vote
|
5,346,704
|
839,617
|
Percentage
|
18.3%
|
2.9%
|
Swing
|
1.0%
|
0.9%
|
|
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/UK_General_Election%2C_October_1974.svg/300px-UK_General_Election%2C_October_1974.svg.png) Colours show the winning party?as shown in
§ Results
|
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Composition_of_the_House_of_Commons_following_the_October_1974_UK_general_election.svg/300px-Composition_of_the_House_of_Commons_following_the_October_1974_UK_general_election.svg.png) |
|
A
general election
was held on the 10 October 1974 to elect all
635 members
of the
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
. The
Labour Party
won the election with a very small
majority
of 3 seats and
Harold Wilson
stayed as
Prime Minister
.
This was the second general election to happen in 1974. The
last election in February
ended in a
hung parliament
and no parties wanted to start a
coalition government
. This meant Labour had to start a
minority government
. This is why a second election was held, because governments are very hard to run if they do not have a majority.
[1]
[2]