1929 United Kingdom general election

1929 United Kingdom general election

30 May 1929
All 615 seats in the House of Commons 308 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	76.3%, 0.7%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Ramsay MacDonald Stanley Baldwin David Lloyd George Party Labour Conservative Liberal Leader since 21 November 1922 23 May 1923 14 October 1926 Leader's seat Seaham Bewdley Caernarvon Boroughs Last election 151 seats, 33.3% 412 seats, 46.8% 40 seats, 17.8% Seats won 287 260 59 Seat change 136 152 19 Popular vote 8,048,968 8,252,527 5,104,638 Percentage 37.1% 38.1% 23.6% Swing 3.8% 8.7% 5.8%
380px Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Prime Minister before election Stanley Baldwin Conservative Appointed Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald Labour

The 1929 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 30 May and resulted in a hung parliament. It stands as the fifth of seven instances under the secret ballot, and the first of three under universal suffrage, in which a party has lost on the popular vote but won the highest number (known as "a plurality") of seats versus all other parties — others are 1852, 1874, January 1910, December 1910, 1951 and February 1974. In 1929 the party was Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party, which won the most seats in the House of Commons for the first time. The Liberal Party re-led by ex-Prime Minister David Lloyd George regained some ground lost in the 1924 election and held the balance of power.

The election was often referred to as the "Flapper Election", because it was the first in which women aged 21–29 had the right to vote (due to the Representation of the People Act 1928). (Women over 30 had been able to vote since the 1918 election.)

The election was fought against a background of rising unemployment, with the memory of the 1926 general strike still fresh in voters' minds. By 1929, the Cabinet was being described by many as "old and exhausted".

The Liberals campaigned on a comprehensive programme of public works under the title "We Can Conquer Unemployment". The incumbent Conservatives campaigned on the theme of "Safety First", with Labour campaigning on the theme of "Labour & the Nation".

This was the first general election to be contested by the newly formed Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru.

It stood as the last time when a "third party" non-Labour or Conservative polled more than one-fifth of the popular vote until 1983, the next election thus ushering in five decades in which two-party politics dominated.

Results

↓ 

287	260	59	8
Labour	Conservative	Lib	O

UK General Election 1929
			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Standing	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Conservative	Stanley Baldwin	590	260	2	154	−152	42.3	38.1	8,252,527	−8.7
	Labour	Ramsay MacDonald	569	287	140	4	+136	46.7	37.1	8,048,968	+3.8
	Liberal	David Lloyd George	513	59	36	17	+19	9.6	23.6	5,104,638	+5.8
	Independent	N/A	11	4	3	1	+2	0.8	0.4	94,742	+0.2
	Communist	Harry Pollitt	25	0	0	1	−1		0.2	47,554	−0.1
	Independent Conservative	N/A	8	0	0	0	0		0.2	46,278
	Scottish Prohibition	Edwin Scrymgeour	1	1	0	0	0	0.2	0.1	25,037	+0.1
	Nationalist	Joseph Devlin	4	3	2	0	+2	0.5	0.1	24,177	+0.1
	Independent Labour	N/A	4	1	1	0	+1	0.2	0.1	20,825	+0.1
	Independent Liberal	N/A	2	0	0	0	0		0.1	17,110	+0.1
	National (Scotland)	Roland Muirhead	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	3,313	N/A
	Plaid Cymru	Saunders Lewis	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	609	N/A

Total votes cast: 21,685,779. Turnout: 76.3%.

Votes summary

Popular vote
Conservative			38.06%
Labour			37.12%
Liberal			23.54%
Independent			0.83%
Others			0.46%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats
Labour			46.67%
Conservative			42.28%
Liberal			9.59%
Independent			0.81%
Others			0.16%

Constituency results

For a full list of the results by constituency, see Constituency election results in the 1929 United Kingdom general election.

Transfers of seats

• All comparisons are with the 1924 election.
  • In some cases, the change is owing to the MP having defected to the gaining party, and then retaining the seat in 1929. Such circumstances are marked with a *.
  • In other circumstances, the change is owing to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1929. Such circumstances are marked with a †.

To		From		No.	Seats
	Independent Labour		Labour	1	Govan*
	Labour		Communist Party	1	Battersea North
			Liberal	15	Chesterfield, South Shields, Walthamstow West, Bristol North, Bristol South, Kingston upon Hull Central*, Blackburn (one of two), Oldham (one of two), Hackney South, Lambeth North, Bradford East, Batley and Morley, Wrexham, Carmarthen, Swansea West
			Constitutionalist	3	Walthamstow East1, Accrington2, Stoke2
			Conservative	121	Stirlingshire West, Dunbartonshire, Lanark, Partick, Lanarkshire North†, Renfrewshire West, Maryhill, Kilmarnock, Edinburgh West, Linlithgow†, Berwick & Haddington, Reading, Birkenhead West, Crewe, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stockport (one of two)†, Carlisle, Whitehaven, Derby (one of two), Belper, Derbyshire South, Drake, Barnard Castle, Sedgefield, Darlington†, Stockton-on-Tees, Sunderland (both seats), Leyton East, East Ham North, Essex SE, Leyton West, Romford, Upton, Bristol Central, Portsmouth Central, Southampton (both seats), Dudley, Stourbridge†, Kingston upon Hull East, Kingston upon Hull South West, Chatham, Dartford, Blackburn (one of two), Ormskirk, Rossendale, Ashton-under-Lyne†, Bolton (both seats), Eccles, Hulme, Oldham (one of two), Salford North, Salford South, Salford West, Bootle, Everton, Kirkdale, Warrington, Widnes, Leicester East, Loughborough, Brigg, Fulham West, Hammersmith South, Islington North, Kensington North, Battersea South†, Greenwich, Islington East, Camberwell North-West, Hackney Central, Kennington, Hammersmith North†, St Pancras North, St Pancras South East, St Pancras South West, Wandsworth Central, Norfolk South West, Norwich (one of two), Kettering, Northampton†, Peterborough, Bassetlaw, Nottingham South, The Wrekin, Frome, Lichfield, Walsall, Wolverhampton West, Nuneaton, Duddeston, Coventry, Aston, Deritend, Erdington, Ladywood, Yardley, Swindon, York, Cleveland, Acton, Enfield, Tottenham South, Sheffield Central, Bradford North, Leeds Central, Sowerby, Wakefield, Sheffield Park, Bradford Central, Pontefract, Newport (Monmouthshire), Brecon and Radnor, Llandaff & Barry, Cardiff Central, Cardiff East, Cardiff South
			Speaker	1	Halifax†
			Independent	1	Mossley
Labour gains:				142
	Liberal		Labour	2	Bethnal Green North-East, Newcastle upon Tyne East
			Constitutionalist	2	Camborne, Heywood and Radcliffe*
			Conservative	32	Banff, Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine, Fife East, Dumfriesshire, Galloway, Bedfordshire Mid, Luton, Huntingdonshire, Isle of Ely, Birkenhead East, Eddisbury, Bodmin, Cornwall North, Penryn and Falmouth, St Ives†, South Molton, Dorset East, Harwich, Hereford, Ashford, Darwen, Preston (one of two), Blackley, Withington, Bosworth†, Holland with Boston†, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk East, Nottingham East, Eye, Flintshire, Pembrokeshire
Liberal gains:				36
	Conservative		Labour	1	King's Norton
			Constitutionalist	1	Epping*
Conservative gains:				2
	Independent		Constitutionalist	1	Stretford*
	Independent Conservative		Conservative	1	Exeter*
	Nationalist		UUP	2	Fermanagh and Tyrone (both seats)

¹ Previous MP had defected to the Conservatives by the 1929 election

² Previous MP had defected to the Liberals by the 1929 election

See also

• List of MPs elected in the 1929 United Kingdom general election
• Constituency election results in the 1929 United Kingdom general election

External links

• United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979

Manifestos

• 1929 Conservative manifesto
• 1929 Labour manifesto
• 1929 Liberal manifesto