United Kingdom general election, 1924

United Kingdom general election, 1924
29 October 1924
All 615 seats in the House of Commons
308 seats needed for a majority
Turnout 77.0%, Increase5.9%

  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Stanley Baldwin Ramsay MacDonald H. H. Asquith
Party Conservative Labour Liberal
Leader since 23 May 1923 21 November 1922 30 April 1908
Leader's seat Bewdley Aberavon Paisley (defeated)
Last election 258 seats, 38.0% 191 seats, 30.7% 158 seats, 29.7%
Seats won 412 151 40
Seat change Increase154 Decrease40 Decrease118
Popular vote 7,418,983 5,281,626 2,818,717
Percentage 46.8% 33.3% 17.8%
Swing Increase8.8% Increase2.6% Decrease11.9%
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in as shown in § Results[lower-alpha 1]
Prime Minister before election

Ramsay MacDonald
Labour

 Appointed Prime Minister

Stanley Baldwin
Conservative

The 1924 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 29 October 1924, as a result of the defeat of the Labour minority government, led by Ramsay MacDonald, in the House of Commons on a motion of no confidence. It was the third general election to be held in less than two years.

The Conservatives, led by Stanley Baldwin, performed better, in electoral terms, than in the 1923 general election and obtained a large parliamentary majority of 209. Labour, led by Ramsay MacDonald, lost 40 seats. The election also saw the Liberal Party, led by H. H. Asquith, lose 118 of their 158 seats which helped to polarise British politics between the Labour Party and Conservative Party.

The fourth party in terms of number of candidates, number of seats and number of votes were not a party but a group of former National Liberals standing under the Constitutionalist label. They favoured Conservative/Liberal co-operation. Three of the seven Constitutionalists elected, including Winston Churchill, had been opposed by official Liberal candidates, and sat as Conservatives after the election. The other four sat as Liberals.

Sinn Féin ran Westminster candidates for the first time since 1918, running a total of eight candidates; all but two of them lost their deposits, however, and none came close to winning the seats they contested, halting any serious prospect of the Northern Irish counties seceding and forming a United Ireland. Aside from a largely abortive attempt at a comeback in the 1950s, it would be 1983 before the party began regularly fielding candidates at Westminster elections.

The Conservative landslide victory and the Labour defeat in this general election has been, in part, attributed to the Zinoviev letter, a forgery, which was published in the Daily Mail four days before the election. However, it is difficult to prove that this had a major impact on the election result. The Labour vote increased by around one million popular votes in comparison to the 1923 general election, however, the increase in the number of popular votes for the Labour Party may be due, in part, to the party putting up eighty-seven more candidates than it did in the previous year's general election.

It is speculated that the combination of Labour forming its first government in January 1924 and the Zinoviev letter helped to stir up anti-socialist fears in Britain among many traditional anti-socialist Liberal voters, who then switched their support to the Conservative Party. This partly helps to explain the poor performance of the Liberal Party in the general election. The party also had financial difficulties which allowed it to contest only 339 seats, a lack of distinctive policies after the Conservative Party dropped their support for protected trade, and poor leadership under Asquith.

Results

↓ 
412 151 40 13
Conservative Labour Lib O
UK General Election 1924
Candidates Votes
Party Leader Stood Elected Gained Unseated Net % of total % No. Net %
  Conservative Stanley Baldwin 534 412 164 10 +154 66.99 46.8 7,418,983 +8.8
  Labour Ramsay MacDonald 514 151 23 63 −40 24.55 33.3 5,281,626 +2.6
  Liberal H. H. Asquith 339 40 10 128 −118 6.5 17.8 2,818,717 −11.9
  Constitutionalist N/A 12 7 7 0 +7 1.14 1.2 185,075 +1.1
  Communist Albert Inkpin 8 1 1 0 +1 0.16 0.2 51,176 +0.1
  Sinn Féin Éamon de Valera 8 0 0 0 0 0.2 34,181 N/A
  Independent N/A 7 2 1 1 0 0.2 25,206 −0.1
  NI Labour Sam Kyle 1 0 0 0 0 0.1 21,122 N/A
  Scottish Prohibition Edwin Scrymgeour 1 1 0 0 0 0.1 14,596 0.0
  Independent Liberal N/A 1 0 0 1 −1 0.0 3,241 −0.1
  Independent Labour N/A 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,775 −0.1
  Independent Unionist N/A 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 517 −0.1
  Nationalist Joseph Devlin 1 1 0 2 −2 0.0 0 −0.4

Votes summary

Popular vote
Conservative
 
 46.79%
Labour
 
 30.68%
Liberal
 
 17.78%
Constitutionalist
 
 1.17%
Others
 
 3.58%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats
Conservative
 
 66.99%
Labour
 
 24.55%
Liberal
 
 6.5%
Constitutionalist
 
 1.14%
Independent
 
 0.49%
Others
 
 0.81%

Transfers of seats

  • All comparisons are with the 1923 election.
    • In some cases the change is due to the MP defecting to the gaining party. Such circumstances are marked with a *.
    • In other circumstances the change is due to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1924. Such circumstances are marked with a †.
To From No. Seats
Communist Liberal 1 Battersea North
Labour 16 Stirling and Falkirk, Paisley, Edinburgh East, Gateshead, Rochdale, Bermondsey West, Southwark Central, Newcastle upon Tyne East, Newcastle upon Tyne West, Burslem, Middlesbrough East, Elland, Keighley, Penistone, Bradford South, Dewsbury
Conservative 7 Motherwell, Barrow-in-Furness, Liverpool West Toxteth, Lincoln, Peckham, Wolverhampton Bilston, Birmingham King's Norton
Labour gains: 23
Liberal Labour 8 Walthamstow West, Bristol North, Hackney South, Norwich (one of two), Bradford East, Batley and Morley, Wrexham, Swansea West
Independent Liberal 1 Cardiganshire *
Liberal gains: 9
Conservative Labour 55 Stirlingshire West, Renfrewshire East, Dunbartonshire, Lanark, Glasgow Partick, Lanarkshire North, Renfrewshire West, Glasgow Maryhill, Kilmarnock, Midlothian & Peebles North, Linlithgow, Berwick & Haddington, Reading, Birkenhead West, Crewe, Carlisle, Whitehaven, Derby (one of two), Barnard Castle, Leyton East, East Ham North, Essex SE, Maldon, Upton, Dartford, Gravesend, Bolton (one of two), Eccles, Oldham (one of two), Salford North, Salford South, Salford West, Warrington, Leicester East, Holland with Boston†, Greenwich, Kennington, Hammersmith North, St Pancras North, St Pancras South East, Norfolk South, Norwich (one of two), Kettering, Northampton, Enfield, Tottenham South, The Wrekin, Frome, Lichfield, Ipswich, Coventry, Wakefield, Bradford Central, Pontefract, Cardiff South
Liberal 106 Bodmin, Cornwall North, Penryn and Falmouth, St Ives, Banff, East Aberdeenshire & Kincardineshire, Aberdeen and Kincardine Central, Forfarshire, Perth, Fife East, Argyll, Edinburgh West, Edinburgh North, Dumfriesshire, Galloway, Bedfordshire Mid, Luton, Abingdon, Newbury, Aylesbury, Wycombe, Huntingdonshire, Isle of Ely, Altrincham, Birkenhead East, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stockport (one of two), Wirral, Barnstaple, South Molton, Tavistock, Tiverton, Torquay, Totnes, Dorset North, Stockton-on-Tees, The Hartlepools, Chelmsford, Harwich, Stroud, Thornbury, Basingstoke, Portsmouth Central, Isle of Wight, Hemel Hempstead, Hull South West, Sevenoaks, Blackpool, Darwen, Lancaster, Lonsdale, Preston (one of two), Manchester Blackley, Manchester Exchange, Manchester Moss Side, Manchester Rusholme, Manchester Withington, Royton, Bootle, Liverpool Wavertree, Liverpool West Derby, Southport, Bosworth, Harborough, Leicester South, Gainsborough, Horncastle, Louth, Hackney North, Brixton, Islington East, Camberwell North-West, Hackney Central, Stoke Newington, Great Yarmouth, King's Lynn, Norfolk East, Hexham, Nottingham Central, Nottingham East, Finchley, Willesden East, Oxford†, Shrewsbury, Bath, Bridgwater, Taunton, Wells, Weston-super-Mare, Walsall, Sudbury, Chichester, Nuneaton, Rugby, Chippenham, Westbury, Devizes, Salisbury, Cleveland, Bradford North, Sowerby, Flintshire, Pembrokeshire, Brecon and Radnor, Cardiff East
National Liberal 1 Loughborough
Independent 1 Harrow1
Conservative gains: 163
Constitutionalist Liberal 4 Accrington, Heywood and Radcliffe, Stretford, Stoke
Independent Liberal 1 Camborne
Conservative 2 Epping, Walthamstow East
UUP Nationalist 2 Fermanagh and Tyrone (both seats)

1 Previous MP had defected to Labour by the time of the 1924 election

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Northern Ireland and university constituencies not shown.
  2. ↑ All parties shown. The only Irish Nationalist candidate was elected unopposed. The Conservatives include the Ulster Unionists.

References

  1. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2014.

Sources

  • Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302

Manifestos

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