Welsh Conservatives
The Welsh Conservative Party is the part of the Conservative Party that operates in Wales. At General Elections, it is the second most popular political party in Wales, having obtained the second largest share of the vote in every one since 1931. In Welsh Assembly elections, the Conservatives are the third most supported party, they hold one of the four Welsh seats in the European Parliament, eight of the forty Welsh seats in the UK Parliament, twelve of the sixty seats in the National Assembly for Wales. The 2015 general election saw the party's best results for thirty years. At the 2017 General Election, the Welsh Conservatives dropped from eleven seats to eight; the Welsh Conservatives were formed in 1921 by the merger of the three existing Welsh Provincial Associations of the Party's National Union. For much of their history they were dominated by the party in England to the extent of supplying the Welsh Secretaries of State, it was after the Assembly came to be established in 1999, which their members opposed, that they adjusted to becoming more of a Welsh orientated party.
Their first Welsh Assembly leader, the former Welsh Office Minister Rod Richards, showed a combative style of politics against the Labour Assembly government. Richards subsequently resigned shortly after the Assembly had become established in response to allegations of an assault, from which he was cleared. Nicholas Bourne, a law professor and former leader of the No campaign in the Welsh Assembly referendum became the leader, in an election, unopposed. From 1999 to 2007 the party remained in opposition in Wales, opposed to forming an alliance with other political parties; this changed in 2007 when the Welsh Conservatives were involved in coalition talks after the indecisive 2007 Welsh election on a "rainbow coalition" with the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru which collapsed after the Liberal Democrats backed out. Plaid Cymru ruled itself out of having a coalition with the Conservatives on an ideological basis. Plaid Cymru and Labour formed the government under the terms of their One Wales agreement.
As a result of the agreement, the Conservatives, the largest opposition party, became the Official Opposition in the Welsh Assembly. In the otherwise successful Welsh Assembly elections of 2011 the long serving Welsh Conservative Party group leader, Nicholas Bourne lost his regional list seat in Mid and West Wales, he had been the longest serving of the party political leaders in the Welsh Assembly. The Preseli Pembrokeshire Assembly Member Paul Davies became the interim group leader whilst an election took place; the contest consisted of Andrew R. T. Davies against Nick Ramsay. Andrew RT Davies won with some 53.1 per cent of the vote on a 49 per cent turnout of the party's Welsh membership. In the post May 2011 Welsh Assembly elections period David Melding was elected as the Deputy Presiding Officer for the Welsh Assembly; the first time a Conservative had held this post. *The 2012 figures excludes Anglesey, elected in 2013 although the change in seats and votes shown is a direct comparison between the 2008 and 2012 figures in the 21 councils up for election.
The 2017 figures are based on changes from the 2012 & 2013 elections
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The party's platform emphasises greater state intervention, social justice and strengthening workers' rights; the Labour Party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the nineteenth century. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming two minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1920s and early 1930s. Labour served in the wartime coalition of 1940-1945, after which Clement Attlee's Labour government established the National Health Service and expanded the welfare state from 1945 to 1951. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour again governed from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1979. In the 1990s Tony Blair took Labour closer to the centre as part of his "New Labour" project, which governed the UK under Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010.
After Corbyn took over in 2015, the party has moved leftward. Labour is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, having won the second-largest number of seats in the 2017 general election; the Labour Party is the largest party in the Welsh Assembly, forming the main party in the current Welsh government. The party is the third largest in the Scottish Parliament. Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, holds observer status in the Socialist International, sits with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament; the party includes semi-autonomous Scottish and Welsh branches and supports the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland. As of 2017, Labour had the largest membership of any party in Western Europe; the Labour Party originated in the late 19th century, meeting the demand for a new political party to represent the interests and needs of the urban working class, a demographic which had increased in number, many of whom only gained suffrage with the passage of the Representation of the People Act 1884.
Some members of the trades union movement became interested in moving into the political field, after further extensions of the voting franchise in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party endorsed some trade-union sponsored candidates. The first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, with the intention of linking the movement to political policies. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. At the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates but won only 44,325 votes. Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups. Hardie's roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party which led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that "Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx".
In 1899, a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all left-wing organisations and form them into a single body that would sponsor Parliamentary candidates; the motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, the proposed conference was held at the Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. After a debate, the 129 delegates passed Hardie's motion to establish "a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour." This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, meant to co-ordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and represent the working-class population.
It had no single leader, in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united; the October 1900 "Khaki election" came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored. Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union being ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike; the judgement made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative Government of Arthur Balfour to industrial and business interests intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared to have little concern for the industrial proletariat and its problems. In the 1906 election, the LRC won 29 seats—helped by a secret 1903 pact between Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone that aimed to avoid splitting the opposition vote between Labour and Liberal candidates in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.
In their first meeting after the election the group's Members of Parliament decided to adop
1918 United Kingdom general election
The 1918 United Kingdom general election was called after the Armistice with Germany which ended the First World War, was held on Saturday, 14 December 1918. The governing coalition, under Prime Minister David Lloyd George, sent letters of endorsement to candidates who supported the coalition government; these were nicknamed "Coalition Coupons", led to the election being known as the "coupon election". The result was a massive landslide in favour of the coalition, comprising the Conservatives and Coalition Liberals, with massive losses for Liberals who were not endorsed. Nearly all the Liberal M. P.s without coupons were defeated, although party leader H. H. Asquith managed to return to Parliament in a by-election, it was the first general election to include on a single day all eligible voters of the United Kingdom, although the vote count was delayed until 28 December so that the ballots cast by soldiers serving overseas could be included in the tallies. It resulted in a landslide victory for the coalition government of David Lloyd George, who had replaced H. H. Asquith as Prime Minister in December 1916.
They were both Liberals and continued to battle for control of the party, fast losing popular support and never regained power. It was the first general election to be held after enactment of the Representation of the People Act 1918, it was thus the first election in which women over the age of 30, all men over the age of 21, could vote. All women and many poor men had been excluded from voting. Women showed enormous patriotism, supported the coalition candidates, it was the first parliamentary election in which women were able to stand as candidates following the Parliament Act 1918, believed to be one of the shortest Acts of Parliament given Royal Assent. The Act was passed shortly, it followed a report by Law Officers that the Great Reform Act 1832 had specified parliamentary candidates had to be male and that the Representation of the People Act passed earlier in the year did not change that. One women, Nina Boyle, had presented herself for a by election earlier in the year in Keighley but had been turned down by the returning officer on technical grounds.
The election was noted for the dramatic result in Ireland, which showed clear disapproval of government policy. The Irish Parliamentary Party were completely wiped out by the Irish republican party Sinn Féin, who vowed in their manifesto to establish an independent Irish Republic, they refused to take their seats in Westminster, instead forming a breakaway government and declaring Irish independence. The Irish War of Independence began soon after the election. Lloyd George's coalition government was supported by the majority of the Liberals and Bonar Law's Conservatives. However, the election saw a split in the Liberal Party between those who were aligned with Lloyd George and the government and those who were aligned with Asquith, the party's official leader. On 14 November it was announced that Parliament, sitting since 1910 and had been extended by emergency wartime action, would dissolve on 25 November, with elections on 14 December. Following confidential negotiations over the summer of 1918, it was agreed that certain candidates were to be offered the support of the Prime Minister and the leader of the Conservative Party at the next general election.
To these candidates a letter, known as the Coalition Coupon, was sent, indicating the government's endorsement of their candidacy. 159 Liberal, 364 Conservative, 20 National Democratic and Labour, 2 Coalition Labour candidates received the coupon. For this reason the election is called the Coupon Election.80 Conservative candidates stood without a coupon. Of these, 35 candidates were Irish Unionists. Of the other non-couponed Conservative candidates, only 23 stood against a Coalition candidate; the Labour Party, led by William Adamson, fought the election independently, as did those Liberals who did not receive a coupon. The election was not chiefly fought over what peace to make with Germany, although those issues played a role. More important was the voters' evaluation of Lloyd George in terms of what he had accomplished so far and what he promised for the future, his supporters emphasised. Against his strong record in social legislation, he called for making "a country fit for heroes to live in".
This election was known as a khaki election, due to the immediate postwar setting and the role of the demobilised soldiers. The coalition won the election with the Conservatives the big winners, they were the largest party in the governing majority. Lloyd George remained Prime Minister, despite the Conservatives outnumbering his pro-coalition Liberals; the Conservatives welcomed his leadership on foreign policy as the Paris Peace talks began a few weeks after the election. An additional 47 Conservatives, 23 of whom were Irish Unionists, won without the coupon but did not act as a separate block or oppose the government except on the issue of Irish independence. While most of the pro-coalition Liberals were re-elected, Asquith's faction was reduced to just 36 seats and lost all their leaders from parliament. Nine of these MPs subsequently joined the Coalition Liberal group; the remainder became bitter enemies of Lloyd George. The Labour Party increased its vote share and surpassed the total votes of either Liberal party.
Labour became the Official Opposition for the first time, but they lacked an official leader and so the Leader of the Opposition for the next fourteen months was the stand-in Liberal leader Donald Maclean (Asquith
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, firstly for nine months in 1924 and again between 1929 and 1935. He was the first Labour Party politician to become Prime Minister, leading minority Labour governments in 1924 and in 1929–31, he headed a National Government from 1931 to 1935, dominated by the Conservative Party and supported by only a few Labour members. MacDonald was vehemently denounced by and expelled from the party he had helped to found. MacDonald, along with Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson, was one of the three principal founders of the Labour Party, he was chairman of the Labour MPs before 1914 and, after an eclipse in his career caused by his opposition to the First World War he was Leader of the Labour Party from 1922. The second Labour Government was dominated by the Great Depression, he formed the National Government to carry out spending cuts to defend the gold standard. The National coalition won an overwhelming landslide and the Labour Party was reduced to a rump of around 50 seats in the House of Commons.
His health deteriorated and he stood down as Prime Minister in 1935 and remained as Lord President of the Council until retiring in 1937. He died that year. MacDonald's speeches and books made him an important theoretician. Historian John Shepherd states that, "MacDonald's natural gifts of an imposing presence, handsome features and a persuasive oratory delivered with an arresting Highlands accent made him the iconic Labour leader." After 1931 MacDonald was and bitterly denounced by the Labour movement as a traitor to their cause. Since the 1960s historians have defended his reputation, emphasising his earlier role in building up the Labour Party, dealing with the Great Depression, as a forerunner of the political realignments of the 1990s and 2000s. MacDonald was born at Gregory Place, Morayshire, the illegitimate son of John MacDonald, a farm labourer, Anne Ramsay, a housemaid. Registered at birth as James McDonald Ramsay, he was known as Jaimie MacDonald. Illegitimacy could be a serious handicap in 19th century Presbyterian Scotland, but in the north and northeast farming communities, this was less of a problem.
MacDonald's mother had worked as a domestic servant at Claydale farm, near Alves, where his father was employed. They were to have been married, but the wedding never took place, either because the couple quarrelled and chose not to marry, or because Anne's mother, Isabella Ramsay, stepped in to prevent her daughter from marrying a man she deemed unsuitable. Ramsay MacDonald received an elementary education at the Free Church of Scotland school in Lossiemouth from 1872 to 1875, at Drainie parish school, he left school at the end of the summer term in 1881, at the age of 15, began work on a nearby farm. In December 1881, he was appointed a pupil teacher at Drainie parish school. In 1885, he left to take up a position as an assistant to Mordaunt Crofton, a clergyman in Bristol, attempting to establish a Boys' and Young Men's Guild at St Stephen's Church, it was in Bristol that Ramsay MacDonald joined a Radical organisation. This federation changed its name a few months to the Social Democratic Federation.
He remained in the group. In early 1886 he moved to London. Following a short period of work addressing envelopes at the National Cyclists' Union in Fleet Street, he found himself unemployed and forced to live on the small amount of money he had saved from his time in Bristol. MacDonald found employment as an invoice clerk in the warehouse of Cooper, Box and Co. During this time he was deepening his socialist credentials, engaged himself energetically in C. L. Fitzgerald's Socialist Union which, unlike the SDF, aimed to progress socialist ideals through the parliamentary system. MacDonald witnessed the Bloody Sunday of 13 November 1887 in Trafalgar Square, in response, had a pamphlet published by the Pall Mall Gazette, entitled Remember Trafalgar Square: Tory Terrorism in 1887. MacDonald retained an interest in Scottish politics. Gladstone's first Irish Home Rule Bill inspired the setting-up of a Scottish Home Rule Association in Edinburgh. On 6 March 1888, MacDonald took part in a meeting of London-based Scots, upon his motion, formed the London General Committee of the Scottish Home Rule Association.
For a while he found little support among London's Scots. However, MacDonald never lost his interest in Scottish politics and home rule, in Socialism: critical and constructive, published in 1921, he wrote: "The Anglification of Scotland has been proceeding apace to the damage of its education, its music, its literature, its genius, the generation, growing up under this influence is uprooted from its past."Politics in the 1880s was still of less importance to MacDonald than furthering his education. He took evening classes in science, agriculture and physics at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution but his health failed him due to exhaustion one week before his examinations; this put an end to any thought of a scientific career. In 1888, MacDonald took employment as private secretary to Thomas Lough, a tea merchant and a Radi
John Morris, Baron Morris of Aberavon
John Morris, Baron Morris of Aberavon, is a British politician. He was a moderate Labour Member of Parliament from 1959 to 2001 and Secretary of State for Wales from 1974 to 1979. Morris was born in Aberystwyth, in the County of Ceredigion, he was educated at Ardwyn School, the University College of Wales and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Morris was a barrister and was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in 1954, he practised at 2 Bedford Row Chambers, took silk in 1973 and was made a Bencher of Gray's Inn in 1984. Between 1982 and 1997 Morris was a Recorder of the Crown Court, he represented Aberavon as its Labour MP from 1959 and was the longest serving Welsh MP until his retirement in 2001, when he was succeeded by Hywel Francis. He served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Transport, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence. Having been sworn of the Privy Council in the 1970 Birthday Honours, Morris joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales between 5 March 1974 and 4 May 1979 and returned to Government as the Attorney General for England and Wales and Northern Ireland between 1997 and 1999, having shadowed the role since 1983.
As such, he was one of only a small handful of Labour ministers to hold office under Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Tony Blair. Lord Morris has been Chancellor of the University of South Wales since its formation in 2013; the University of South Wales was formed by a merger between University of Glamorgan and the University of Wales, Newport. He succeeded fellow Labour politician Lord Merlyn-Rees as the Chancellor for the University of Glamorgan. Lord Morris was President of the London Welsh Trust, which runs the London Welsh Centre, Gray's Inn Road, from 2001 until 2008, he is a council member of The Prince's Trust. He was raised to the peerage for life as Baron Morris of Aberavon, of Aberavon in the County of West Glamorgan and of Ceredigion in the County of Dyfed in the 2001 Dissolution Honours, was made Lord Lieutenant of Dyfed a year and was appointed to the Order of the Garter as a Knight Companion in 2003. 1931–1959: Mr John Morris 1959–1970: Mr John Morris 1970–2001: The Rt Hon. John Morris 2001: The Rt Hon. John Morris 2001–2003: The Rt Hon.
The Lord Morris of Aberavon 2003–: The Rt Hon. The Lord Morris of Aberavon Profile on the University of Glamorgan website Downing Street press notice September 2002 They Work for You.com
Swing (politics)
An electoral swing analysis shows the extent of change in voter support from one election to another, expressed as a positive or negative percentage. A multi-party swing is an indicator of a change in the electorate's preference between candidates or parties. A swing can be calculated for the electorate as a whole, for a given electoral district or for a particular demographic. A swing is useful for analysing change in voter support over time, or as a tool for predicting the outcome of elections in constituency-based systems. Swing is usefully deployed when analysing the shift in voter intentions revealed by opinion polls or to compare polls concisely which may rely on differing samples and on markedly different swings and therefore predict extraneous results. A swing is calculated by comparing the percentage of the vote in a particular election to the percentage of the vote belonging to the same party or candidate at the previous election. One-party swing = Percentage of vote − percentage of vote.
Examples include the comparison between the 2007 Ukrainian Parliamentary elections. The above charts show the change in voter support for each of the six major political parties by electoral district and nationwide vote results. In many nation states' media, including in Australia and the United Kingdom, swing is expressed in terms of two parties; this practice is most useful where most governments tend to be from an existing two-party system but other candidates do sometimes run, is used to predict the outcome of elections in constituency-based systems where different seats are held with different previous levels of support. An assumption underlies extrapolated national calculations: that all districts will experience the same swing as shown in a poll or in a place's results; the advantage of this swing is the fact that the loss of support for one party will in most cases be accompanied by smaller or bigger gain in support for the other, but both figures are averaged into one. Employing the two assumptions allows the analyst to compute an electoral pendulum, predicting how many seats will change hands given a particular swing, what size uniform swing would therefore bring about a change of government.
In Australia, the term "swing" refers to the change in the outcome of an election from the viewpoint of specific political parties in the preferential voting system. The UK uses the two-party swing, adding one party's increase in share of the vote to the percentage-point fall of another party and dividing the total by two. So if Party One's vote rises by 4 points and Party Two's vote falls 5 points, the swing is 4.5 points. For disambiguation suffixes such as: must be added where three parties stand. Otherwise a problem when deciding which swing is meant and which swing is best to publish arises where a lower party takes first or second. Originating as a mathematical calculation for comparing the results of two constituencies, any of these figures can be used as an indication of the scale of voter change between any two political parties, as shown below for the 2010 United Kingdom general election: Swing in the United States can refer to swing state, those states that are known to shift an outcome between Democrats and Republican Parties, equivalent on a local level to marginal seats.
By contrast, a non-swing state is the direct equivalent of a safe seat, as it changes in outcome. The extent of change in political outcome is influenced by the voting system in use; some websites provide a pie chart based or column-based multi party swingometer where ± x%, ± x%, ± x% and so on is displayed or can be input for three parties. This tool or illustration provides outcomes wherever more than two political parties have a significant influence on which politicians are elected. Swing vote Swingometer Notes References
1959 United Kingdom general election
The 1959 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 8 October 1959. It marked a third consecutive victory for the ruling Conservative Party, now led by Harold Macmillan. For the second time in a row, the Conservatives increased their overall majority in Parliament, to 101 seats over the Labour Party led by Hugh Gaitskell; the Liberal Party led by Jo Grimond again returned only six MPs to the House of Commons, but managed to increase their overall share of the vote to 5.9%. To date, the 1959 general election marks the only occasion since the Second World War when a government has managed to increase its overall majority while seeking a third term in government. However, despite this electoral success; this election marks the beginning of Labour's domination of Scottish seats at Westminster, which lasted until the rise of the Scottish National Party at the 2015 general election. Both future Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe and future Conservative Party leader and eventual Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher first entered the House of Commons at this election.
After the Suez Crisis in 1956, Anthony Eden, the Conservative Prime Minister, became unpopular. He resigned early in 1957, was succeeded by Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan. At that point, the Labour Party, whose leader Hugh Gaitskell had succeeded Clement Attlee after the 1955 general election, enjoyed large leads in opinion polls over the Conservative Party, it looked as if Labour could win; the Liberal Party had a new leader, Jo Grimond, so all three parties contested the election with a new leader at the helm. However, the Conservatives enjoyed an upturn in fortunes as the economy improved under Macmillan's leadership, his personal approval ratings remained high. By September 1958, the Conservatives had moved ahead of Labour in the opinion polls. All the three main parties had changed leadership since the previous election; the Conservatives fought under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it" and were boosted by a pre-election economic boom.
Macmillan effectively "summed up" the mood of the British public when he said that most of the people had "never had it so good". Macmillan was popular, was described as a politician of the centre ground; the first week of polling put the Conservatives ahead of Labour by over 5%, but this narrowed as the campaign continued. The Labour Party fought a effective campaign, with television broadcasts masterminded by Tony Benn under the umbrella of their manifesto entitled Britain Belongs to You, which accused the Conservatives of complacency over the growing gap between rich and poor. Hugh Gaitskell made a mistake in declaring that a Labour government would not raise taxes if it came to power—even though the Labour manifesto contained pledges to increase spending; this led voters to doubt Labour's spending plans, is cited as a key reason for their defeat. Early on election night it became clear that the Conservative Party had been returned to government with an increased majority. However, there were swings to Labour in parts of north-west England, in Scotland.
The Labour domination of Scottish seats would last for another 56 years, until the rise of the Scottish National Party in the wake of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. James Callaghan believed that the Conservatives increased their majority in part because working-class Labour voters were still angry at the party for opposing the Suez conflict. For the fourth general election in a row, the Conservatives increased their number of seats, despite experiencing a slight decrease in their share of the vote. For Labour, the result was disappointing. Future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was elected to the House of Commons for the first time as the MP for Finchley. While the Liberal Party earned more than twice as many votes as in the previous general election, this was the result of them nominating nearly double the amount of candidates that they did four years prior. Future party leader Jeremy Thorpe was elected to Parliament for the first time, as the MP North Devon; the Daily Mirror, despite being a staunch supporter of the Labour Party, wished Macmillan "good luck" on its front page following his election victory.
The BBC's election coverage, presented by Richard Dimbleby, was shown on BBC Parliament on 9 October 2009 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the election. All comparisons are with the 1955 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, retained in 1959; such circumstances are marked with a †. MPs elected in the UK general election, 1959 United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979 The Next Five Years, 1959 Conservative Party manifesto Britain Belongs to You: The Labour Party's Policy for Consideration by the British People, 1959 Labour Party manifesto People Count, 1959 Liberal Party manifesto
