1929 United Kingdom general election

1929 United Kingdom general election
← outgoing members elected members →
All 615 seats in the House of Commons; 308 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	76.3%, 0.7%
	Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Prime Minister before election; Stanley Baldwin; Conservative	Prime Minister after election ; Ramsay MacDonald; Labour

The 1929 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 30 May 1929 and resulted in a hung parliament. It stands as the fourth of six instances under the secret ballot, and the first of three under universal suffrage, in which a party has lost on the popular vote but won the highest number (known as "a plurality") of seats versus all other parties (the others are 1874, January 1910, December 1910, 1951 and February 1974). In 1929, Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party won the most seats in the House of Commons for the first time. The Liberal Party led again by former Prime Minister David Lloyd George regained some ground lost in the 1924 general election and held the balance of power.

The election was often referred to as the "Flapper Election", because it was the first in which women aged 21–29 had the right to vote (owing to the Representation of the People Act 1928). (Women over 30 had been able to vote since the 1918 general election.)

The election was fought against a background of rising unemployment, with the memory of the 1926 general strike still fresh in voters' minds. By 1929, the Cabinet was being described by many as "old and exhausted".^[1]

The Liberals campaigned on a comprehensive programme of public works under the title "We Can Conquer Unemployment". The incumbent Conservatives campaigned on the theme of "Safety First", with Labour campaigning on the theme of "Labour & the Nation".

This was the first general election to be contested by the newly formed Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru.

It stood as the last time when a "third party" non-Labour or Conservative polled more than one-fifth of the popular vote until 1983, the next election thus ushering in five decades in which two-party politics dominated.

Results[]

↓
287	59	260	9
Labour	Lib	Conservative	O

UK General Election 1929
			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Stood	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Conservative	Stanley Baldwin	590	260	2	154	−152	42.3	38.1	8,252,527	−8.7
	Labour	Ramsay MacDonald	569	287	140	4	+136	46.7	37.1	8,048,968	+3.8
	Liberal	David Lloyd George	513	59	36	17	+19	9.6	23.6	5,104,638	+5.8
	Independent	N/A	11	4	3	1	+2	0.8	0.4	94,742	+0.2
	Communist	Harry Pollitt	25	0	0	1	−1		0.2	47,554	−0.1
	Ind. Conservative	N/A	8	0	0	0	0		0.2	46,278
	Scottish Prohibition	Edwin Scrymgeour	1	1	0	0	0	0.2	0.1	25,037	+0.1
	Nationalist	Joseph Devlin	3	2	2	0	+2	0.5	0.1	24,177	+0.1
	Independent Labour	N/A	4	1	1	0	+1	0.2	0.1	20,825	+0.1
	Independent Liberal	N/A	2	0	0	0	0		0.1	17,110	+0.1
	National (Scotland)	Roland Muirhead	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	3,313	N/A
	Plaid Cymru	Saunders Lewis	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	609	N/A
	Irish Nationalist	T. P. O'Connor	1	1	0	0	0		0.0	0	N/A

Votes summary[]

Popular vote

Conservative			38.06%
Labour			37.12%
Liberal			23.54%
Others			1.28%

Seats summary[]

Parliamentary seats

Labour			46.67%
Conservative			42.28%
Liberal			9.59%
Others			1.46%

Constituency results[]

Transfers of seats[]

All comparisons are with the 1924 election.
- In some cases, the change is owing to the MP having defected to the gaining party, and then retaining the seat in 1929. Such circumstances are marked with a *.
- In other circumstances, the change is owing to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1929. Such circumstances are marked with a †.

To			No.	Seats
	Independent Labour	Labour	1	Govan*
	Labour	Communist	1	Battersea North
		Liberal	15	Chesterfield, South Shields, Walthamstow West, Bristol North, Bristol South, Kingston upon Hull Central*, Blackburn (one of two), Oldham (one of two), Hackney South, Lambeth North, Bradford East, Batley and Morley, Wrexham, Carmarthen, Swansea West
		Constitutionalist	3	Walthamstow East¹, Accrington², Stoke²
		Conservative	121	Stirlingshire West, Dunbartonshire, Lanark, Partick, Lanarkshire North†, Renfrewshire West, Maryhill, Kilmarnock, Edinburgh West, Linlithgow†, Berwick & Haddington, Reading, Birkenhead West, Crewe, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stockport (one of two)†, Carlisle, Whitehaven, Derby (one of two), Belper, Derbyshire South, Drake, Barnard Castle, Sedgefield, Darlington†, Stockton-on-Tees, Sunderland (both seats), Leyton East, East Ham North, Essex SE, Leyton West, Romford, Upton, Bristol Central, Portsmouth Central, Southampton (both seats), Dudley, Stourbridge†, Kingston upon Hull East, Kingston upon Hull South West, Chatham, Dartford, Blackburn (one of two), Ormskirk, Rossendale, Ashton-under-Lyne†, Bolton (both seats), Eccles, Hulme, Oldham (one of two), Salford North, Salford South, Salford West, Bootle, Everton, Kirkdale, Warrington, Widnes, Leicester East, Loughborough, Brigg, Fulham West, Hammersmith South, Islington North, Kensington North, Battersea South†, Greenwich, Islington East, Camberwell North-West, Hackney Central, Kennington, Hammersmith North†, St Pancras North, St Pancras South East, St Pancras South West, Wandsworth Central, Norfolk South West, Norwich (one of two), Kettering, Northampton†, Peterborough, Bassetlaw, Nottingham South, The Wrekin, Frome, Lichfield, Walsall, Wolverhampton West, Nuneaton, Duddeston, Coventry, Aston, Deritend, Erdington, Ladywood, Yardley, Swindon, York, Cleveland, Acton, Enfield, Tottenham South, Sheffield Central, Bradford North, Leeds Central, Sowerby, Wakefield, Sheffield Park, Bradford Central, Pontefract, Newport (Monmouthshire), Brecon and Radnor, Llandaff & Barry, Cardiff Central, Cardiff East, Cardiff South
		Speaker	1	Halifax†
		Independent	1	Mossley
Labour gains:			142
	Liberal	Labour	2	Bethnal Green North-East, Newcastle upon Tyne East
		Constitutionalist	2	Camborne, Heywood and Radcliffe*
		Conservative	32	Banff, Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine, Fife East, Dumfriesshire, Galloway, Bedfordshire Mid, Luton, Huntingdonshire, Isle of Ely, Birkenhead East, Eddisbury, Bodmin, Cornwall North, Penryn and Falmouth, St Ives†, South Molton, Dorset East, Harwich, Hereford, Ashford, Darwen, Preston (one of two), Blackley, Withington, Bosworth†, Holland with Boston†, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk East, Nottingham East, Eye, Flintshire, Pembrokeshire
Liberal gains:			36
	Conservative	Labour	1	King's Norton
	Conservative	Constitutionalist	1	Epping*
Conservative gains:			2
	Independent	Constitutionalist	1	Stretford*
	Independent	Conservative	2	Combined English Universities (one of two), Exeter*
	Nationalist	UUP	2	Fermanagh and Tyrone (both seats)

¹ Previous MP had defected to the Conservatives by the 1929 election

² Previous MP had defected to the Liberals by the 1929 election

References[]

^ Doerr 1998, pp. 104–5.
^ Tetteh, Edmund (1 February 2008). "Election Statistics: UK 1918-2007" (PDF). parliament.uk. 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
Doerr, Paul W. (1998), British foreign policy 1919–1939, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 0719046718

External links[]

United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979 Archived 31 January 2012 at WebCite

Manifestos[]

[FOOTNOTEDoerr1998104–5-1] Doerr 1998, pp. 104–5.

[2] Tetteh, Edmund (1 February 2008). "Election Statistics: UK 1918-2007" (PDF). parliament.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2014.

[1]

[2]

v t Elections and referendums in the United Kingdom
General elections	1801 1802 1806 1807 1812 1818 1820 1826 1830 1831 1832 1835 1837 1841 1847 1852 1857 1859 1865 1868 1874 1880 1885 1886 1892 1895 1900 1906 1910 (Jan) 1910 (Dec) 1918 1922 1923 1924 1929 1931 1935 1945 1950 1951 1955 1959 1964 1966 1970 1974 (Feb) 1974 (Oct) 1979 1983 1987 1992 1997 2001 2005 2010 2015 2017 2019 Next
Local elections	1889 1892 1894 1896 1909 1934 1949 1955 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022
European elections	1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019
Referendums	1975 2011 2016