1992 United Kingdom general election

1992 United Kingdom general election

9 April 1992
All 651 seats in the House of Commons 326 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	77.7% (2.4 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader John Major Neil Kinnock Paddy Ashdown Party Conservative Labour Liberal Democrats Leader since 27 November 1990 2 October 1983 16 July 1988 Leader's seat Huntingdon Islwyn Yeovil Last election 376 seats, 42.2% 229 seats, 30.8% 22 seats, 22.6% Seats won 336 271 20 Seat change 40 42 2 Popular vote 14,094,116 11,557,062 6,027,038 Percentage 41.9% 34.4% 17.8% Swing 0.3 pp 3.6 pp 4.8 pp
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results
Composition of the House of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election John Major Conservative Prime Minister after election John Major Conservative

Seats won in the election (outer ring) against number of votes (inner ring)

The 1992 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 April 1992, to elect 651 members to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party led by Prime Minister John Major won a fourth consecutive election victory, with a majority of 21. This would be the last time that the Conservatives would win an overall majority at a general election until 2015 and the last general election to be held on a day which did not coincide with any local elections until 2017. This election result took many by surprise, as opinion polling leading up to the election day had shown a narrow but consistent lead for the Labour Party under leader Neil Kinnock during a period of recession and declining living standards.

John Major had won the leadership election in November 1990 following the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. During his first term leading up to the 1992 election he oversaw the British involvement in the Gulf War, introduced legislation to replace the unpopular Community Charge with Council Tax, and signed the Maastricht Treaty. Britain was sliding into its second recession in a decade at the time of Major's appointment.

Opinion polls in the run-up to the election had suggested that it would end in a hung parliament or a narrow Labour majority. The fact that it produced a Conservative majority meant that it was one of the most dramatic and memorable elections in the UK since the end of the Second World War. The Conservative Party received what remains the largest number of votes at a United Kingdom general election in British history, breaking the previous record set by the Labour Party in 1951.

Former Conservative leader and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Labour Party leader Michael Foot, former SDP leader David Owen, three former Chancellors of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson, former Home Secretary Merlyn Rees, Francis Maude, Norman Tebbit, Rosie Barnes, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and Speaker of the House of Commons Bernard Weatherill left the House of Commons after this election, though Maude and Adams returned at the next election. Future Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith was elected to parliament in this election.

Overview

The Conservatives had been re-elected in a landslide at the 1987 general election under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who had led the party back into power in 1979 and won a landslide majority in 1983, but her popularity and that of her government sharply declined due to internal divisions in the party and the unpopular Community Charge (also known as the 'poll tax'), as well as the fact that Britain was sliding into recession in the run-up to her resignation in November 1990.

Labour began to lead the Conservatives in the opinion polls by as much as 20 percentage points. Thatcher resigned following the party leadership ballot in November 1990, initiated by Michael Heseltine, and was replaced by her Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major. This was well received by the public; Labour lost some momentum as it reduced the impact of their calls for "Time for a Change".

On 16 January 1991, Operation Desert Storm began the Gulf War, the Major ministry's first foreign affairs crisis. The quick and successful outcome on the conflict led to a boost in opinion polls for Major, in spite of the deepening recession and rising unemployment. Another boost in the polls for Major was his announcement that the unpopular community charge (poll tax) would be replaced with the Council Tax. The Labour opposition made repeated calls for a general election to be held during 1991, but Major resisted these calls.

As 1992 dawned, the recession had still not ended, unemployment now topped 2.5 million and the election loomed, with most opinion polls suggested that the election would produce a hung parliament or a narrow Labour majority, although the lead in the polls had shifted between Tory and Labour on several occasions since November 1990.

Parliament was due to expire no later than 16 June 1992. Major called the election on 11 March, as was widely expected, the day after Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont had delivered the Budget. The Conservatives maintained strong support in many newspapers, especially The Sun, which ran a series of anti-Labour articles that culminated on election day with a front-page headline which urged "the last person to leave Britain" to "turn out the lights" if Labour won the election.

Campaign

The 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom sat for the last time on Monday 16 March, being dissolved on the same day.

Under the leadership of Neil Kinnock, the Labour Party had undergone further developments and alterations since its 1987 general election defeat. Labour entered the campaign confident, with most opinion polls showing a slight Labour lead that if maintained suggested a hung parliament, with no single party having an overall majority.

The parties campaigned on the familiar grounds of taxation and health care. Major became known for delivering his speeches while standing on an upturned soapbox during public meetings. Immigration was also an issue, with Home Secretary Kenneth Baker making a controversial speech stating that, under Labour, the floodgates would be opened for immigrants from developing countries. Some speculated that this was a bid by the Conservatives to shore up its support amongst its white working-class supporters. The Conservatives also pounded the Labour Party over the issue of taxation, producing a memorable poster entitled "Labour's Double-Whammy", showing a boxer wearing gloves marked "tax rises" and "inflation".

An early setback for Labour came in the form of the "War of Jennifer's Ear" controversy, which questioned the truthfulness of a Labour party election broadcast concerning National Health Service (NHS) waiting lists.

Labour seemingly recovered from the NHS controversy, and opinion polls on 1 April (dubbed "Red Wednesday") showed a clear Labour lead. But the lead fell considerably in the following day's polls. Observers blamed the decline on the Labour Party's triumphalist "Sheffield Rally", an enthusiastic American-style political convention at the Sheffield Arena, where Neil Kinnock famously cried out "We're all right!" three times. However, some analysts and participants in the campaign believed it actually had little effect, with the event only receiving widespread attention after the election.

This was the first general election for the newly formed Liberal Democrats, a party formed by the formal merger of the SDP–Liberal Alliance following the 1987 general election. Its formation had not been without its problems, but under the strong leadership of Paddy Ashdown, who proved to be a likeable and candid figure, the party went into the election ready to win votes and seats. They focused on education throughout the campaign, as well as a promise on reforming the voting system.

The weather was largely dull for most of the campaign, but sunny conditions on 9 April may have been a factor in the high turnout.

Minor parties

In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) hoped for a major electoral breakthrough in 1992 and had run a hard independence campaign with "Free by '93" as their slogan, urging voters to back a party which would deliver Scottish independence from the United Kingdom. Although the party increased its total vote by 50% compared to 1987, they only held onto the three seats they had won at the previous election. They lost Glasgow Govan, which their deputy leader Jim Sillars had taken from Labour in a by-election in 1988. Sillars quit active politics after the general election with a parting shot at the Scottish electorate as being "ninety-minute patriots", referring to their support of the Scotland football team only during match time.

The election also saw a small change in Northern Ireland: the Conservatives organised and stood candidates in the constituent country for the first time since the Ulster Unionist Party had broken with them in 1972 over the Sunningdale Agreement. Although they won no seats, their best result was Laurence Kennedy achieving over 14,000 votes to run second to James Kilfedder in North Down.

Retirees

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher stepped down at the general election, as did former cabinet minister Norman Tebbit, Labour veteran Denis Healey, former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson, Geoffrey Howe, former Labour leader Michael Foot, former SDP leader David Owen, Merlyn Rees, then-Speaker Bernard Weatherill, former Conservative Party chairman Cecil Parkinson, John Wakeham, Nicholas Ridley and Peter Morrison. Alan Clark also retired from Parliament, though he returned in 1997 as MP for Kensington and Chelsea, only to die two years later.

Endorsements

The following newspapers endorsed political parties running in the election in the following ways:

Newspaper	Party/ies endorsed		Circulation (in millions)
The Sun		Conservative Party	3.6
Daily Mirror		Labour Party	2.9
Daily Mail		Conservative Party	1.7
Daily Express		Conservative Party	1.5
Daily Telegraph		Conservative Party	1.0
The Guardian		Labour Party	0.4
		Liberal Democrats
The Independent		None	0.4
The Times		Conservative Party	0.4

In a move later described in The Observer as appalling to its City readership, the Financial Times endorsed the Labour Party in this general election.

Opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling for the 1992 United Kingdom general election

Opinion polling for the 1992 UK General Election, with a 7-poll moving average.

  Conservative

  Labour

  Liberal Democrats

Almost every poll leading up to polling day predicted either a hung parliament with Labour the largest party, or a small Labour majority of around 19 to 23. Polls on the last few days before the country voted predicted a very slim Labour majority. Of the 50 opinion polls published during the election campaign period, 38 suggested Labour had a narrow but clear lead. After the polls closed, the BBC and ITV exit polls still predicted that there would be a hung parliament and "that the Conservatives would only just get more seats than Labour".

With opinion polls at the end of the campaign showing Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck, the actual election result was a surprise to many in the media and in polling organisations. The apparent failure of the opinion polls to come close to predicting the actual result led to an inquiry by the Market Research Society, and would eventually result in the creation of the British Polling Council a decade later. Following the election, most opinion polling companies changed their methodology in the belief that a 'Shy Tory factor' affected the polling.

Results

Labour Leader Neil Kinnock conceding defeat

Results map

The election turnout of 77.67% was the highest in 18 years. There was an overall Labour swing of 2.2%, which widened the gap between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Although the percentage of Conservative votes was only 0.3% down on 1987, the Conservative overall majority in the House of Commons was reduced from 102 to 21. This number was reduced progressively during the course of Major's term in office due to defections of MPs to other parties, by-election defeats, and for a time in 1994–95 the suspension of the Conservative whip for some MPs who voted against the government on its European policy—by 1996, the Conservative majority had been reduced to just 1 seat, and they were in a minority going into 1997 until the 1997 general election. The Conservatives in 1992 received 14,093,007 votes, the highest total of votes for any political party in any UK general election, beating the previous largest total vote of 13.98 million achieved by Labour in 1951 (although this was from a smaller electorate and represented a higher vote share). Nine government ministers lost their seats in 1992, including party chairman Chris Patten.

The Sun's analysis of the election results was headlined "It's The Sun Wot Won It", though in his testimony to the April 2012 Leveson Inquiry, Rupert Murdoch claimed that the "infamous" headline was "both tasteless and wrong". Tony Blair also accepted this theory of Labour's defeat and put considerable effort into securing The Sun's support for New Labour, both as Leader of the Opposition before the 1997 general election and as Prime Minister afterwards.

Steve Richards notes that one theory for Labour's defeat relates to Kinnock seeming triumphalist, "overconfident and cocky" at a major Labour Party election rally in Sheffield. At the time of the event polls suggested Labour was well ahead of the Conservatives. Richards argues the rally "acquired a mythological status as fatal event" after Labour's defeat, but considers this theory to be "a red herring". He notes that prior to the result of the election becoming known, "there was no suggestion that Kinnock had made a terrible blunder" at the event. Indeed, Richards notes that the BBC's political editor John Cole had indicated he had been impressed in his live reporting of the rally which Cole compared with similar events held by President Kennedy. Richards concluded that the party would have lost the election even if there had been no Sheffield Rally.

This election continued the Conservatives' decline in Northern England, with Labour regaining many seats they had not held since 1979. The Conservatives also began to lose support in the Midlands, but achieved a slight increase in their vote in Scotland, where they had a net gain of one seat. Labour and Plaid Cymru strengthened in Wales, with Conservative support declining. However, in the South East, South West, London and Eastern England the Conservative vote held up, leading to few losses there: many considered Basildon to be indicative of a nouveau riche working-class element, referred to as Essex man, voting strongly Conservative. This election is the most recent in which the Conservatives won more seats than Labour in Greater London, at 48 to 35; in the 1997 election, the Conservatives would win only 11.

For the Liberal Democrats their first election campaign was a reasonable success; the party had worked itself up from a "low base" during its troubled creation and come out relatively unscathed.

It was Labour's second general election defeat under leader Neil Kinnock and deputy leader Roy Hattersley. Both resigned soon after the election, and were succeeded by John Smith and Margaret Beckett respectively.

Sitting MPs Dave Nellist, Terry Fields, Ron Brown, John Hughes and Syd Bidwell, who had been expelled or deselected by the Labour Party and stood as independents, were all defeated, although in Nellist's case only very narrowly. Tommy Sheridan, fighting the election from prison, polled 19% in Glasgow Pollok.

UK general election 1992

			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Stood	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Conservative	John Major	645	336	3	44	−41	51.69	41.9	14,094,116	−0.3
	Labour	Neil Kinnock	634	271	43	1	+42	41.62	34.4	11,557,062	+3.6
	Liberal Democrats	Paddy Ashdown	632	20	4	6	−2	3.07	17.8	6,027,038	−4.8
	SNP	Alex Salmond	72	3				0.46	1.9	629,552	+0.6
	UUP	James Molyneaux	13	9				1.38	0.8	270,749	0.0
	SDLP	John Hume	13	4	1		+1	0.61	0.5	184,445	0.0
	Green	Jean Lambert and Richard Lawson	253	0				0.0	0.5	170,047	+0.2
	Plaid Cymru	Dafydd Wigley	38	4	1		+1	0.61	0.5	156,796	+0.1
	DUP	Ian Paisley	7	3				0.46	0.3	103,039	0.0
	Sinn Féin	Gerry Adams	14	0		1	−1	0.0	0.2	78,291	−0.1
	Alliance	John Alderdice	16	0				0.0	0.2	68,695	0.0
	Liberal	Michael Meadowcroft	73	0				0.0	0.2	64,744
	Natural Law	Geoffrey Clements	309	0				0.0	0.2	62,888
	Ind. Social Democrat	N/A	2	0				0.0	0.1	28,599
	Independent	N/A	6	0				0.0	0.1	22,844
	UPUP	James Kilfedder	1	1				0.15	0.1	19,305	0.0
	Ind. Conservative	N/A	12	0				0.0	0.1	11,356
	Monster Raving Loony	Screaming Lord Sutch	25	0				0.0	0.1	7,929	+0.1
	Independent	N/A	23	0				0.0	0.1	7,631
	BNP	John Tyndall	13	0				0.0	0.1	7,631
	SDP	John Bates	8	0				0.0	0.1	6,649
	Scottish Militant Labour	Tommy Sheridan	1	0				0.0	0.1	6,287
	National Front	John McAuley	14	0				0.0	0.1	4,816
	True Labour	Sydney Bidwell	1	0				0.0	0.1	4,665
	Anti-Federalist	Alan Sked	17	0				0.0	0.1	4,383
	Workers' Party	Marian Donnelly	8	0				0.0	0.1	4,359	0.0
	Official Conservative Hove Party	Nigel Furness	1	0				0.0	0.0	2,658
	Loony Green	Stuart Hughes	5	0				0.0	0.0	2,538
	Ind. Unionist	N/A	1	0				0.0	0.0	2,256
	New Agenda	Proinsias De Rossa	2	0				0.0	0.0	2,133
	Independent Progressive Socialist	N/A	1	0				0.0	0.0	1,094
	Islamic Party	David Pidcock	4	0				0.0	0.0	1,085
	Revolutionary Communist	Frank Furedi	8	0				0.0	0.0	745
	Independent Nationalist	N/A	1	0				0.0	0.0	649
	Communist (PCC)	Jack Conrad	4	0				0.0	0.0	603

All parties with more than 500 votes shown. Plaid Cymru result includes votes for Green/Plaid Cymru Alliance.

Government's new majority	21
Total votes cast	33,614,074
Turnout	77.7%

Popular vote Conservative   41.9% Labour   34.4% Liberal Democrat   17.8% Scottish National   1.9% Ulster Unionist   0.8% Others   2.9%

Parliamentary seats Conservative   51.6% Labour   41.6% Liberal Democrat   3.1% Ulster Unionist   1.4% Others   2.3%

The disproportionality of the house of parliament in the 1992 election was 13.59 according to the Gallagher Index, mainly between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.

Incumbents defeated

Party		Name	Constituency	Office held while in power	Year elected	Defeated by	Party
	Conservative Party	Humfrey Malins	Croydon North West		1983	Malcolm Wicks		Labour Party
		Michael Knowles	Nottingham East		1983	John Heppell		Labour Party
		Martin Brandon-Bravo	Nottingham South		1983	Alan Simpson		Labour Party
		Andy Stewart	Sherwood	Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the House of Commons	1983	Paddy Tipping		Labour Party
		Tim Janman	Thurrock		1987	Andrew MacKinlay		Labour Party
		Michael Irvine	Ipswich		1987	Jamie Cann		Labour Party
		Colin Moynihan	Lewisham East	Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy	1983	Bridget Prentice		Labour Party
		Sir William Shelton	Streatham		1970	Keith Hill		Labour Party
		Patrick Ground QC	Feltham and Heston		1983	Alan Keen		Labour Party
		Sir Neil Thorne	Ilford South		1979	Mike Gapes		Labour Party
		Hugo Summerson	Walthamstow		1987	Neil Gerrard		Labour Party
		Michael Fallon	Darlington	Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education	1983	Alan Milburn		Labour Party
		Chris Butler	Warrington South		1987	Mike Hall		Labour Party
		Cecil Franks	Barrow and Furness		1983	John Hutton		Labour Party
		Tony Favell	Stockport		1983	Ann Coffey		Labour Party
		Ken Hargreaves	Hyndburn		1983	Greg Pope		Labour Party
		John Lee	Pendle		1979	Gordon Prentice		Labour Party
		Ken Hind	Lancashire West	Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland	1983	Colin Pickthall		Labour Party
		Sir David Trippier	Rossendale and Darwen		1979	Janet Anderson		Labour Party
		The Right Honourable Lynda Chalker	Wallasey	Minister for Overseas Development & Africa	1974	Angela Eagle		Labour Party
		Christopher Chope	Southampton Itchen	Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport	1983	John Denham		Labour Party
		The Right Honourable Chris Patten	Bath	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster & Chairman of the Conservative Party	1979	Don Foster		Liberal Democrats
		Jonathan Sayeed	Bristol East	Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Paymaster General	1983	Jean Cortson		Labour Party
		Rob Hayward	Kingswood		1983	Roger Berry		Labour Party
		Sir Gerry Neale	North Cornwall		1979	Paul Tyler		Liberal Democrats
		Tony Speller	North Devon		1979	Nick Harvey		Liberal Democrats
		Lewis Stevens	Nuneaton		1983	Bill Olner		Labour Party
		The Right Honourable Francis Maude	North Warwickshire	Financial Secretary to the Treasury	1983	Mike O'Brien		Labour Party
		Roger King	Birmingham Northfield		1983	Richard Burden		Labour Party
		Anthony Beaumont-Dark	Birmingham Selly Oak		1979	Lynne Jones		Labour Party
		David Gilroy Bevan	Birmingham Yardley		1979	Estelle Morris		Labour Party
		Maureen Hicks	Wolverhampton North East	Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office	1987	Ken Purchase		Labour Party
		Ian Grist	Cardiff Central		1974	Jon Owen Jones		Labour Party
		John Maples	Lewisham West	Economic Secretary to the Treasury	1983	Jim Dowd		Labour Party
		Gerald Bowden	Dulwich		1983	Tessa Jowell		Labour Party
		Gerald Howarth	Cannock and Burntwood		1983	Tony Wright		Labour Party
		Conal Gregory	York		1983	Hugh Bayley		Labour Party
		Nicholas Bennett	Pembrokeshire	Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales	1983	Nick Ainger		Labour Party
	Labour Party	Frank Doran	Aberdeen South		1987	Raymond Robertson		Conservative Party
		John Smith	Vale of Glamorgan		1989	Walter Sweeney		Conservative Party
		Huw Edwards	Monmouth		1991	Roger Kenneth Evans		Conservative Party
		Ashok Kumar	Langbaurgh		1991	Michael Bates		Conservative Party
		Sylvia Heal	Mid Staffordshire		1990	Michael Fabricant		Conservative Party
	Liberal Democrats	Michael Carr	Ribble Valley		1991	Nigel Evans		Conservative Party
		Ronnie Fearn	Southport		1987	Matthew Banks		Conservative Party
		David Bellotti	Eastbourne		1990	Nigel Waterson		Conservative Party
		Nicol Stephen	Kincardine and Deeside		1991	George Kynoch		Conservative Party
		Richard Livsey	Brecon and Radnorshire		1985	Jonathan Evans		Conservative Party
		Geraint Howells	Ceredigion and Pembroke North		1974	Cynog Dafis		Plaid Cymru
	Social Democratic Party	Rosie Barnes	Greenwich		1987	Nick Raynsford		Labour Party
		John Cartwright	Woolwich		1974	John Austin		Labour Party
	Scottish National Party	Jim Sillars	Glasgow Govan	Depute Leader of the Scottish National Party	1988	Ian Davidson		Labour Party
		Dick Douglas	Dunfermline West (contested Glasgow Garscadden)		1979	Donald Dewar		Labour Party
	Independent	John Browne	Winchester		1979	Gerry Malone		Conservative Party
		Dave Nellist	Coventry South East		1983	Jim Cunningham		Labour Party
		John Hughes	Coventry North East		1987	Bob Ainsworth		Labour Party
		Terry Fields	Liverpool Broadgreen		1983	Jane Kennedy		Labour Party
		Syd Bidwell	Ealing Southall		1966	Piara Khabra		Labour Party
		Ron Brown	Edinburgh Leith		1979	Malcolm Chisholm		Labour Party
	Sinn Féin	Gerry Adams	Belfast West	President of Sinn Féin	1983	Joe Hendron		Social Democratic and Labour Party

Television coverage

The BBC ran coverage from 21:55 till 06:00, and from 09:30 till 16:00 on Friday 10 April. Unlike most prior British elections, the BBC's coverage started five minutes before the polls closed and the result of the exit poll was announced live, accompanied by footage of Big Ben striking, at 10pm. This method of revealing the exit poll has been repeated in all subsequent BBC election night broadcasts.

Coverage was, according to the Radio Times, supposed to end at 04:00 on Friday morning, but was extended.

The BBC began construction of the Election 92 studio in October 1990, completing it in February 1991, due to speculation that an early election may be called in 1991. Rehearsals were held in the event of a Conservative and Labour victory.

Although the election was not part of the storyline, there was much background chanting and campaigning in the BBC television soap opera EastEnders.

On ITV, ITN produced their election night coverage from their studios in London, with Jon Snow anchoring the coverage from 22:00 until 06:00. They continued their daytime coverage on Friday 10 April from 09:25 until 15:25. Breakfast coverage of the election results were provided by TV-am, the ITV breakfast franchise, from 06:00 until 09:25, who were producing their third and final general election special.

See also

• List of MPs elected in the 1992 United Kingdom general election
• Baltic Exchange bombing
• 1992 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
• 1992 United Kingdom general election in England
• 1992 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
• 1992 United Kingdom general election in Wales
• 1992 United Kingdom local elections

Manifestos

• The Best Future For Britain – 1992 Conservative manifesto.
• It's time to get Britain working again – 1992 Labour Party manifesto.
• Changing Britain for good – 1992 Liberal Democrats manifesto.

Further reading

• Butler, David E., et al. The British General Election of 1992 (1992), the standard scholarly study

External links

• Catalogue of 1992 general election ephemera at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.