The last December election, 1923 – Ayoola Oshiyemi
The last December election 1923 United Kingdom General Election:
This general election was held on Thursday 6th of December, 1923. The outcomes of the event was that the Conservatives who was represented by Stanley Baldwin, won majority of the seats in parliament, however labour who was represented by Ramsay MacDonald as well as H.H. asquith’s liberal Party obtained a sufficient amount of seats to create a hung parliament which is a term used in leglisaltures to manage a situation or dilemma in which no political party has an absolute majority (situation of no overall control. In this situation whoever was initially Prime minister before will stay in power and is given the privilege to form a government or coalition by negotiating with various parties, and would formulate a minority government, however in 1923, the Conservative Party lost their majority at the general election but failed to gain a coalition and the part lost a vote on the king’s speech in January, 1924.
The Labour Party under Ramsay MacDonald consequently took office and dominated as a minority administration until October of that same year. It was the most up-to-date, so far the UK general election in which a third party (the liberals) won over 100 seats or received more than 26% of the vote. This went down in history as this was the first ever labour government, However only lasted for ten months and there was another general election held on Wednesday 29th of October, 1924, it was the third general election to be held in less than two years.
In May 1923, the Prime Minister, Bonar Law became sick and therefore had to step down from his position on the 22nd of May, when he had only been office for 209 days. Consequently, Stanley Baldwin took over from him. Baldwin had one an election the year before and therefore had a sustainable majority in the House of Commons, however fell short when he lost a host of seats to Labour and the Liberals. The results were as follows: Conservative- 258, Labour- 191 and Liberal- 158.
What is a hung parliament: it is basically, a parliament in which no political party has enough seats to secure an overall majority. It is a term used in leglislatures under Westminster system to depict a situation in which no specific political party or coalition has an absolute or definite majority of legislators. The Hung parliament situation, also occurred in 1975 where the incumbent Conservative administration lost its majority. The result of the election was that Edward Heath failed to create a coalition and therefore had to step down as Prime minister. Additionally in the 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 6th of May, 2010 where the Conservative Party led by David Cameron won the largest number of votes as well as seats but stilll needed twenty seats. This led to a hung parliament as no party was able to secure a majority in the House of Commons and this was only the second general election since the Second World War to return to a hung parliament.
Post Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.