The UK General Election of 2001

The UK General Election fought on 7^th June 2001 saw the second victory of “New Labour” led by Tony Blair, following their stunning landslide win in 1997 that brought to an end 18 years of Conservative rule.

As is typical of governments that are confident of their position, Tony Blair called the 2001 election after four years in office rather than five, and the result seemed to justify his confidence. The overall result was “steady as you go”, with only a handful of seats changing hands. Labour lost only six net seats, with the Conservatives making only one net gain (they won nine seats but lost eight). Of the mainstream parties, the Liberal Democrats had most to cheer on election night, with their parliamentary representation rising from 46 to 52.

The Conservatives fought the 2001 election under a new leader, William Hague, who had succeeded former Prime Minister John Major after the latter resigned following the 1997 defeat. However, as party leader he failed to galvanize the country, becoming something of a figure of fun after he was pictured riding a log flume at a theme park while wearing a baseball cap. He found it impossible to get the electorate to take him seriously as a potential Prime Minister and resigned as leader soon after the 2001 election.

The election campaign turned out to be low-key, with the opposition parties finding few issues on which they could attack the government, which had dealt competently enough with the issues that concerned the electorate during the four years since 1997. Polling on matters such as stewardship of the National Health Service and management of the economy showed that most people were satisfied with the way things were being handled and therefore saw no reason to change back to the Conservatives at this time.

This general air of satisfaction was reflected in the low turnout at the election, with only 59.4% of voters bothering to go the polling station, as against 71.4% in 1997.

In terms of proportion of votes cast per party, the Labour vote fell by 2.5% and that for the Conservatives rose by 1.0%, with the Liberal Democrats doing best with a 1.5% rise in vote share, although the low turnout mentioned above meant that the actual number of votes fell for all the main parties.

Of the relatively few seats that changed hands, a number could be accounted for by local circumstances. For example, in Taunton the sitting Liberal Democrat MP, Jackie Ballard, had been unwise enough to declare her opposition to fox-hunting in a very rural seat, and she paid the price accordingly. In Wyre Forest (Worcestershire) a local retired doctor, Richard Taylor, stood as an Independent and won with a majority of more than 17,500 (gaining 58.1% of the votes cast) on a ticket of defending the local hospital from closure.

One noticeable feature of the 1997 Conservative defeat had been their failure to win any seats in either Wales or Scotland, and they had high hopes of reversing this trend in 2001. In Wales they came closest in Monmouth, but fell short by just 384 votes. This failure in Wales was despite the relative unpopularity of Labour, whose share of the vote fell by 6%. However, given that most Labour seats in Wales were held with huge majorities, this percentage fall could easily be withstood.

In Scotland the Conservatives did manage to win their first seat since 1992, this being the border seat of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale which they took from the Scottish Nationalists with a majority of just 74 votes. Overall, the Nationalists (SNP) had a frustrating night, making no gains but suffering no other losses, thus ending up with five seats.

In Northern Ireland, where politics are fought on a completely different basis to that on the mainland, seven of the 18 seats changed hands, representing moves towards the extremes in both the republican and loyalist communities. Sinn Fein, who do not take up their seats in Parliament, doubled their number of MPs from  two to four, and the Democratic Unionists (led by Rev Ian Paisley) had a net gain of two seats over their more moderate rivals the Ulster Unionists.

Of the 659 MPs who took their seats after the 2001 election, 99 were new to the House of Commons, these comprising 38 Labour, 33 Conservatives, 14 Liberal Democrats and 14 others. This proportion of newbies, at 15%, was much lower than the 40% in 1997. The composition of the new House was overwhelming male, white and middle-class, with these trends being much greater among Conservative than Labour MPs. Only 188 MPs after the election were women, being three fewer than beforehand. Labour was the only party to have MPs who were from non-white ethnic minorities, the number of such being 12.

The 2001 General Election therefore resulted in a House of Commons that was not very different from what had gone before. However, Tony Blair’s Commons majority of 165 was to take something of a battering the next time round, being reduced to 60 in 2005.

© John Welford