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United Kingdom general election, 1970 All 630 seats to the House of Commons
18 June 1970
		First Party	Second Party	Third Party
Leader		Edward Heath	Harold Wilson	Jeremy Thorpe
Party		Conservative	Labour	Liberal
Leader since		28 July 1965	14 February 1963	18 January 1967
Leader's seat		Bexley	Huyton	North Devon
Last election		253 seats, 41.9%	364 seats, 48%	12 seats, 8.5%
Seats won		330	288	6
Seat change		+69	-77	-6
Popular vote		13,145,123	12,208,758	2,117,035
Percentage		46.4%	43.1%	7.5%
Swing		%	%	%
Incumbent PM Harold Wilson Labour PM-Elect Edward Heath Conservative

1964 election • MPs

1966 election • MPs

1970 election • MPs

February 1974 election • MPs

October 1974 election • MPs

The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their seats. The Conservatives, including the Ulster Unionists, would be given a majority of 31.

Most opinion polls prior to the election had predicted a comfortable Labour victory and had put Labour up to 12.4% ahead of the Conservatives. However on election day, a late swing gave the Conservatives a 3.4% lead.

Commentators believed that an unexpectedly bad set of balance of payments figures released in polling week, and loss of national prestige after the England football team's defeat in the World Cup, contributed to the Labour defeat.¹

In "exhaustive research" of the election, the American pollster Douglas Schoen and Oxford University academic R. W. Johnson believed it "beyond dispute" that Enoch Powell had attracted 2.5 million votes to the Conservatives. Johnson later wrote that "It became clear that Powell had won the 1970 election for the Tories...of all those who had switched their vote from one party to another in the election, 50 per cent were working class Powellites. Not only had 18 per cent of Labour Powellites switched to the Tories but so had 24 per cent of Liberal Powellites". Johnson further believed that the votes Powell brought to the Conservatives were "quite possibly four or five million".²

The most notable casualty of the election was George Brown, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, who lost to the Conservative candidate in the Belper constituency. Brown had held the seat since 1945.

On the BBC, the election coverage was led by Cliff Michelmore along with Robin Day, David Butler and Robert McKenzie. There were various cutaways to the BBC regions. The coverage was shown again on BBC Parliament on 26 September 2003, and a third time on 18 July 2005 as a tribute to Edward Heath upon his death the previous day.

Contents 1 Opinion poll summary 2 Results 2.1 Votes summary 2.2 Seats summary 3 Televised declarations 4 See also 5 References 6 Manifestos

Opinion poll summary

ORC (Opinion Research Council): Conservative lead of 1%
Harris (Express Newspapers): Labour lead of 2%
NOP (National Opinion Polls): Labour lead of 4%
Marplan: Labour lead of 9%
BBC Exit Poll in Gravesend constituency: Conservative lead of 1%

It should be noted that the ORC and BBC poll were conducted the day before and the day of polling. All other polls were conducted the weekend before polling.

Results

UK General Election 1970
		Seats						Votes
Party		Contested	Won	Gained	Lost	Net	%	Vote %	Votes	Net %
	Conservative	628	330	75	6	+ 69	52.4	46.4	13,145,123	+ 4.5
	Labour	625	288	10	87	- 77	45.7	43.1	12,208,758	- 4.9
	Liberal	332	6	0	6	- 6	0.95	7.5	2,117,035	- 1.0
	Scottish National Party	65	1	1	0	+ 1	0.16	1.1	306,802	+ 0.6
	Plaid Cymru	36	0	0	0	0		0.6	175,016	+ 0.4
	Unity	5	2	2	0	+ 2	0.32	0.4	140,930	N/A
	Independent	40	0	0	0	0		0.1	39,264	0.0
	Communist	58	0	0	0	0		0.1	37,970	- 0.1
	Protestant Unionist	2	1	1	0	+ 1	0.16	0.1	35,303	N/A
	Republican Labour	1	1	0	0	0	0.16	0.1	30,649	N/A
	Independent Labour	3	1	1	0	+ 1	0.16	0.1	24,685	+ 0.1
	Independent Conservative	8	0	0	0	0		0.1	24,014	+ 0.1
	Democratic	5	0	0	0	0		0.1	15,292	N/A
	National Democratic	4	0	0	0	0		0.1	14,276	N/A
	National Front	10	0	0	0	0		0.1	11,449	N/A
	National Democrats	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	10,349	N/A
	Vectis National	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,607	N/A
	Independent Liberal	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,456	0.0
	World Government	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,016	N/A
	Mebyon Kernow	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	960	N/A
	Ind. Labour Party	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	847	0.0
	British Movement	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	704	N/A
	Independent Progressive	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	658	N/A
	Socialist (GB)	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	376	0.0
	Young Ideas	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	142	N/A
	British Commonwealth	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	117	N/A

Total votes cast: 28,305,534. All parties are listed. The Conservative figure includes eight Ulster Unionists.

Votes summary

Popular vote
Conservative and Unionist			46.44%
Labour			43.13%
Liberal			7.48%
Scottish National Party			1.08%
Independent			0.32%
Others			1.55%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats
Conservative and Unionist			52.38%
Labour			45.71%
Liberal			0.95%
Others			0.95%

Televised declarations

(From BBC Parliament Replay.) These declarations were covered live by the BBC where the returning officer was heard to say "duly elected".

Constituency	Winning party 1966		Constituency result by party						Winning party 1970
			Con	Lab	Lib	PC	SNP	Others
Guildford		Conservative	27,203	13,108	8,822					Conservative hold
Cheltenham		Conservative	22,823	14,213	8,431					Conservative hold
Salford West		Labour	14,310	16,986						Labour hold
Wolverhampton North East		Labour	15,358	17,251				1,592		Labour hold
Salford East		Labour	9,583	15,853	3,000					Labour hold
Salford East		Conservative	26,252	11,753	2,459			318		Conservative hold
Newcastle upon Tyne Central		Labour	4,256	13,671	1,433					Labour hold
Newcastle upon Tyne North		Conservative	15,978	12,518						Conservative hold
Exeter		Labour	21,680	20,409	6,672					Conservative gain

See also

• MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1970

References

• F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987
• United Kingdom election results - summary results 1885-1979

Manifestos

• A Better Tommorow - 1970 Conservative manifesto.
• NOW BRITAIN'S STRONG - LET'S MAKE IT GREAT TO LIVE IN - 1970 Labour Party manifesto.
• What a Life! - 1970 Liberal Party manifesto.

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