2010 United Kingdom general election
A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday 6 May 2010, to elect 650 Members of Parliament to the House of Commons. This was the first election to be held after the minimum age of candidacy was reduced from 21 to 18.
It resulted in the Labour government losing its 66-seat majority; however, with the opposition Conservative Party ending up with only 306 elected MPs, it was also the first election since that of February 1974 to result in a hung parliament. The Conservatives entered government, and remained in office for 14 years until being ousted in 2024.
For the leaders of all three major political parties, this was their first general election contest as party leader, something that had last been the case at the 1979 election. Incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown had taken office in June 2007 following the end of Tony Blair's 10-year tenure as prime minister and 13 years as leader of the Labour Party, while David Cameron had succeeded Michael Howard in December 2005 and Nick Clegg had succeeded Menzies Campbell in December 2007.
During the campaign, the three main party leaders engaged in the first televised debates. The Liberal Democrats achieved a breakthrough in opinion polls following the first debate, in which their leader Nick Clegg was widely seen as the strongest performer. Nonetheless, on polling day their share of the vote increased by only 1%, with a net loss of five seats. This was still the Liberal Democrats' largest popular vote since the party's creation in 1988; they found themselves in a pivotal role in the formation of the new government. The share of votes for parties other than Labour or the Conservatives was 35%, the largest since the 1918 general election. In terms of votes it was the most "three-cornered" election since 1923, as well as in terms of seats since 1929. The Green Party of England and Wales won its first ever seat in the House of Commons, and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland also gained its first elected member. The general election saw a 5.1% national swing from Labour to the Conservatives, the third-largest since 1945. The result in one constituency, Oldham East and Saddleworth, was subsequently declared void on petition because of illegal practices during the campaign ; it was the first such instance since 1910.
A hung parliament had been largely anticipated by the opinion polls in the run-up to the election, so politicians and voters were better prepared for the constitutional process that would follow such a result than they had been in 1974. The coalition government that was subsequently formed was the first to result directly from a UK election. The hung parliament came about in spite of the Conservatives managing both a higher vote total and a higher share of the vote than the previous Labour government had done in 2005, when it had secured a comfortable majority. Coalition talks began immediately between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, and lasted for five days. There was an aborted attempt to put together a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition. To facilitate this, Gordon Brown announced on the evening of Monday 10 May that he would resign as Leader of the Labour Party. Realising that a deal between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats was imminent, Brown resigned the next day, on Tuesday 11 May, as prime minister, marking the end of 13 years of Labour government. This was accepted by Queen Elizabeth II, who then invited David Cameron to form a government in her name and become prime minister. Just after midnight on 12 May, the Liberal Democrats approved the agreement "overwhelmingly", sealing a coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
A total of 149 sitting MPs stood down at the election, the highest since 1945, including many former New Labour Cabinet ministers such as former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Alan Milburn, Geoff Hoon, Ruth Kelly, James Purnell and John Reid. One reason for the very high number of MPs standing down was the parliamentary expenses scandal a year earlier. A record 228 new MPs were elected at the election. Many of the Conservative MPs elected for the first time became ministers in government. Notable newcomers who were elected to parliament in 2010 include future Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss, future chancellors of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Sajid Javid, Kwasi Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi, future Home Secretary Priti Patel, future Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, future Leaders of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg and Penny Mordaunt, future Health Secretary Matt Hancock and future Deputy Prime Ministers Dominic Raab and Thérèse Coffey.
Background
On 6 April 2010, the prime minister, Gordon Brown, visited Buckingham Palace for a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II to ask her to dissolve Parliament on 12 April, confirming in a live press conference in Downing Street, as had long been speculated, that the election would be held on 6 May, five years since the previous election on 5 May 2005. The election took place on 6 May in 649 constituencies across the United Kingdom, under the first-past-the-post system, for seats in the House of Commons. Voting in the Thirsk and Malton constituency was postponed for three weeks because of the death of a candidate.The governing Labour Party campaigned to secure a fourth consecutive term in office, and to restore support lost since 2001 due to the Iraq War. The Conservative Party sought to gain a dominant position in British politics after losses in the 1990s, and to replace Labour as the governing party. The Liberal Democrats hoped to make gains from both sides and hoped to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Since the televised debates between the three leaders, their poll ratings had risen to the point where many considered the possibility of a Liberal Democrat role in Government. Polls just before election day saw a slight swing from the Liberal Democrats back to Labour and Conservatives, with the majority of final polls falling within one point of Conservatives 36%, Labour 29%, Liberal Democrats 23%. However, record numbers of undecided voters raised uncertainty about the outcome. The Scottish National Party, encouraged by their victory in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, set itself a target of 20 MPs and was hoping to find itself holding a balance of power. Equally, Plaid Cymru sought gains in Wales. Smaller parties which had had successes at local elections and the 2009 European elections looked to extend their representation to seats in the House of Commons. The Democratic Unionist Party looked to maintain, if not extend, its number of seats, having been the fourth-largest party in the House of Commons.
Key dates
The key dates were:| Monday 12 April | Dissolution of Parliament and campaigning officially began |
| Tuesday 20 April | Last day to file nomination papers, to register to vote, and to request a postal vote |
| Thursday 6 May | Polling day |
| Tuesday 11 May | David Cameron became prime minister through a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. |
| Tuesday 18 May | New Parliament assembled |
| Tuesday 25 May | State Opening of Parliament |
| Thursday 27 May | Voting took place in the delayed poll in the constituency of Thirsk and Malton |
| Friday 5 November | Oldham East and Saddleworth election result voided on petition at an election court, causing a by-election |
MPs declining re-election
This election had an unusually high number of MPs choosing not to seek re-election, with more standing down than did so at the 1945 general election. This has been attributed to the 2009 expenses scandal and the fact there was talk that redundancy-style payments for departing MPs might be scrapped after the election.In all, 149 MPs decided not to contest the election. Additionally, three seats were vacant at the time of the dissolution of Parliament; two due to the deaths of Labour MPs and one due to the resignation in January 2010 of a DUP member.
Boundary changes
Each of the four national boundary commissions is required by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 to conduct a general review of all the constituencies in its part of the United Kingdom every eight to twelve years to ensure the size and composition of constituencies are as fair as possible. Based on the Rallings and Thrasher studies using ward-by-ward data from local elections and the 2005 general election, the new boundaries used in 2010 would have returned nine fewer Labour MPs had they been in place at the previous election; given that there were to be four more seats in the next parliament, this notionally reduced Labour's majority from 66 to 48.Pursuant to Boundary Commission for England recommendations, the number of seats in England increased by four, and numerous changes were made to the existing constituency boundaries.
Northern Ireland continued to elect 18 MPs, but minor changes were made to the eastern constituencies in accordance with the Northern Ireland Boundary Commission's recommendations. For the first time, these changes include the splitting of an electoral ward between two constituencies.
Following the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for Wales, the total number of seats remained at 40, although new seats caused by radical redrawing of boundaries in Clwyd and Gwynedd were fought for the first time: Arfon and Dwyfor Meirionnydd replaced Caernarfon and Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, respectively; Aberconwy replaced Conwy. At the time of the election Welsh constituencies had electorates on average around 14,000 smaller than their counterparts in England.
Scotland saw its most recent large-scale review completed in 2004, so its 59 constituencies remained the same as at the 2005 general election.