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Margaret Thatcher had resigned as Prime Minister in November 1990 and John Major succeeded her. During his term leading up to the 1992 elections he oversaw the British involvement in the Gulf War, abolished the much-disliked poll tax in favour of council tax and signed the Maastricht treaty. Like other leaders of major industrialized nations, he failed to halt the economy's slide into recession. Major waited until his Chancellor, Norman Lamont, had delivered a budget before announcing the date of the election on March 11.
Election campaign
Labour entered the campaign full of confidence; under the leadership of Neil Kinnock the party had undergone a deep reorganisation and modernisation following the failures at the 1987 election. Most opinion polls predicted a slight Labour lead, leading to a hung Parliament (with no single party having an overall majority).
Labour and the Tories campaigned on the now traditional grounds of taxation and health care. Major became known for actually standing on a soapbox during his public meetings, while Labour's shadow chancellor, John Smith put forward a "shadow budget". It has been claimed by some commentators including Anthony Howard that the "shadow budget", the weakest part of the manifesto, was designed by Smith to ensure Labour would not win and create a situation for him to take the premiership. Labour were approached by the Liberal Democrats under Paddy Ashdown seeking an alliance, Labour did not clearly commit or refuse but sent out mixed messages.
In late March, Labour's campaign was not helped by the "War of Jennifer's Ear" controversy, which questioned the veracity of a Labour party election broadcast concerning NHS waiting lists. As with the issue over John Smith's budget the Shadow Health Spokesman charged with this issue Robin Cook also had leadership aspirations.
Labour seemingly recovered from the controversy, and opinion polls on 1st April (dubbed "Red Wednesday") showed Labour in a decisive lead. But this lead was greatly diminished in the following day's polls with the decline blamed largely on the Labour Party's "Sheffield Rally": an enthusiastic American-style political convention at the Sheffield Arena.
Leaders
Labour defeat
With Labour still narrowly ahead in the opinion polls, the actual election result was a surprise to many, especially in the media and polling organisations. The failure of the opinion polls to come close to the actual result led to an inquiry by the Market Research Society. Following the election, most opinion polling companies changed their methodology in the belief that there was a 'Shy Tory Factor' affecting polls.
Turnout at the election, at 77.67 %, was the highest in eighteen years. There was an overall swing of 2.2 % towards Labour, insufficient to gain them victory but something of a boost and also widening the gap between themselves and the Lib-Dems. For the Conservatives, despite the reasonable percentage of votes received (only 0.5 % down on 1987), the actual Conservative majority was only 21 seats and that became progressively smaller across Major's term in office. It is worth noting, however, that the Conservatives received more actual votes in this election than any party before or since (including Labour's landslide in 1997). By the following election in 1997, Major was effectively running a minority government. Nine government ministers had lost their seats as well as the party chairman, Chris Patten.
On the morning of polling day, The Sun newspaper (which had consistently supported the Conservatives throughout the campaign, except in Scotland) had published a controversial front page with the headline "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights." They also featured an overweight woman on Page 3, headlined, "Here's How Page 3 Will Look Under Kinnock!" Many commentators believed that this caused a late swing to the Conservatives sufficient to overcome Labour's poll lead. The Sun certainly thought so and their story on the election results was headlined "It's the Sun wot won it." Tony Blair also accepted this theory of Labour's defeat and has 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. Other commentators give the Sun a less important role, and suggest that the opinion pollsters simply got it wrong. A third theory is that the "triumphalism" of the Sheffield rally was to blame, because it was unpopular with voters, seeming to pre-judge their votes, and it gave the air of fait accompli, also reducing turnout of Labour voters. It turned out that there were only two seats in the country where the size of the majority could be affected by the number of Sun readers, one of these seats was Basildon. The results were signalling that the Conservatives decline in Northern England was gathering faster pace as Labour began to win back former heartlands from them, the Conservatives also began to lose support in the Midlands. They did manage to hold out in Scotland increasing their representation by one. In Wales support was fading as Plaid Cymru as well as Labour began to drive into Conservative majorities. However, in the South East, South West, London and Eastern parts of England the Conservatives retained almost all of their support and the regions remained Conservative country.
Kinnock, having twice led his party to defeat, resigned soon after the election; he was accompanied by the deputy leader, Roy Hattersley. They were succeeded by John Smith and Margaret Beckett.
Calls for electoral reform
Given that the 1992 election resulted in a Conservative overall majority of 21, it has been stated that their victory could be said to have been decided by only 1,241 votes distributed through the 11 seats with the smallest Conservative majorities in the election. If those seats had not been Conservative, the party would not have had an overall majority.
This is used as part of the case in favour of electoral reform for General Elections in the United Kingdom as, like in the United States, the political parties focus their efforts on a small number of marginal seats leaving voters in seats where the parties get a large majority of the votes feel as if their vote does not matter as much. This is reflected in marginal seats having a higher turnout than "safe" seats, for example at the 1992 General Election the marginal seat of Brecon and Radnorshire saw a turnout of 85.9% of all eligible voters casting their vote (the sitting MP was defending a majority of 56 votes and lost by only 130) compared to a "safe" seat of Swansea West where the turnout was only 73.3%.
Other parties
The Labour Party were not the only disappointed participants of the 1992 Election. In Scotland the Scottish National Party (SNP) had high hopes of making a major electoral breakthrough. They had run a hard campaign with Free by '93 their slogan, and support for independence polled at 50% in one newspaper poll shortly before the election.
In the end though the SNP only held onto the three seats they won at the 1987 General Election and lost the Govan seat that they had won in 1988 with their deputy leader Jim Sillars as candidate. The number of seats they had hoped to win had been significantly higher and the outcome proved extremely disappointing to many, not least Sillars who quit active politics with a parting shot describing the Scottish electorate as 'ninety minute patriots'.
The one major upside for the SNP was that they managed to increase their vote by 50% compared with 1987.
The election also saw a small change in Northern Ireland as the Conservatives organised and stood candidates in the province for the first time since the Ulster Unionist Party had broken away. The fringe Natural Law Party also stood on an all-UK basis. However the hoped for breakthrough did not materialise for either party.
Margaret Thatcher, Denis Healey, Nigel Lawson, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Foot, David Owen and Merlyn Rees were all prominent retirees.
Results
The turnout was 33,514,074 from an electorate of 43,275,316, voting in a total of 651 seats. All parties with more than 500 votes shown. Plaid Cymru result includes votes for Green/Plaid Cymru Alliance.
See also MPs elected in the UK general election, 1992.
1992 elections | United Kingdom general elections
Britische Unterhauswahlen 1992 | Parlamentsvalet i Storbritannien 1992
"United Kingdom general election, 1992"