Recent results and the future

Since the middle of the twentieth century, the contest to form the government has effectively been a straight fight between the Labour and Conservative parties. As a general rule, the north of England and most of the inner areas of English cities return Labour MPs to Westminster, while the south of England and most areas outside the inner cities have a Conservative MP. Which of these two parties forms the government depends on which one does better in the suburbs and large towns of England.

Scotland used to be good territory for the Conservatives. This changed, however, during the 1980$ and the vast majority of MPs from there now represent Labour. Wales has always returned mostly Labour MPs. Since the 1970s, the respective nationalist parties in both countries have regularly won a few seats in Parliament.

Traditionally, the Liberal party was also relatively strong in Scotland and Wales. Its modern successor, the Liberal Democrat party, is not so geographically restricted and has managed to win some seats all over Britain, with a concentration in the south-west of England.

Northern Ireland always has about the same proportion of Protestant Unionist MPs and Catholic Nationalist MPs (since the 1970s, about two-thirds the former, the third the latter). The only element of uncertainty is how many seats the more extremist (as opposed to the more moderate) parties will on either side of this invariant political divide.

In the thirteen elections from 1945 to 1987, the Conservatives were generally more successful than Labour. Although Labour achieved a majority on five occasions, on only two of these was the majority comfortable. On the other three occasions it was so small that it was in constant danger of disappearing as a result of by-election defeats. In the same period, the Conservatives won a majority seven times, always comfortably.

Then, in the 1992 election, the Conservatives won for the fourth time in a row – the first time this had been achieved for more than 160 years. Moreover, they achieved it in the middle of an economic recession. This made many people wonder whether Labour could ever win again. It as if the swingometer’s pendulum had struck on the right. Labour’s share of the total vote had generally decreased in the previous four decades while support for the third party had grown since the early 1970s. Many sociologists believed this trend to be inevitable because Britain had developed a middle-class majority (as opposed to its former working-class majority). Many political observers were worried about this situation. It is considered to be basic to the British system of democracy that power should change hands occasionally. There was much talk about a possible reorganization of British politics, for example a change to a European-style system of proportional representation (so that Labour could at least share in a coalition government), or a formal union between Labour and the Liberal Democrats (so that together they could defeat the Conservatives).

However, in 1997 the picture changed dramatically. Labour won the largest majority in the House of Commons achieved by any party for 73 years and the Conservative share of the total vote was their lowest in 165 years. What happened? The answer seems to be that voting habits in Britain, reflecting the weakening of the class system, are no longer tribal. There was a time when the Labour party was regarded as the political arm of the trade unions, representing the working class of the country. Most working-class people voted Labour all their lives and nearly all middle-class people voted Conservatives all their lives. The winning party at an election was the one who managed to get the support of the small number of ‘floating voters’. But Labour has now got rid of its trade-union image. It is capable of winning as many middle-class votes as the Conservatives, so that the middle-class majority in the population, as identified by sociologists, does not automatically mean a Conservative majority in the House of Commons.