SHORT COMMONS
The Volatile British Voter
By ROBERT BLAKE
pARLIAMENTS as short as that elected in October 1964 are rare exceptions in British history. Since 1832 there have been thirty-three parliaments, and so the average length is a shade over four years. Oddly enough, the average did not change as a result of the passing of the Par- liament Act of 1911 which reduced the upper limit from seven to five years. This was partly because Prime Ministers seldom availed them- selves of the provisions of the Septennial Act. Only three parliaments between 1832 and 1911 lasted into their seventh year. It is also because the post-1911 period includes two parliaments prolonged far beyond the statutory limit, owing to wartime emergency. If these are regarded as four-and-a-half-year parliaments—a not un- reasonable assumption—the post-1911 average falls to three and a half years, and this indeed is the average length since 1945. Perhaps a more significant figure than this is the fact that of four- teen parliaments since 1911 eight have run beyond Ibeir fourth year. If there is a 'normal' pattern at ill this would seem to be it.
Since 1832 only six parliaments, including that of 1964, have failed to outlast their second year. It is interesting to see if these have anything in common. On the face of it one might have ex- pected that general elections held at such short intervals would produce similar or at least not startingly dissimilar results. This has certainly occurred in other countries, notably Canada, very recently. Is not the British people renowned for its caution, stability, prudence and phlegm? To turn out a government after four or five years is one thing, to do so after less than two is quite another.
The first instance of a 'short' parliament is that of 1885 which only lasted seven months, and was indeed the shortest of the lot. Far from confirm- ing the status quo the election of 1886 resulted in a sensational turnover of seats. Gladstone had been defeated on the second reading of the first Home Rule Bill, and dissolved in order to secure the country's verdict. It was delivered in no un- certain fashion. 'Well, Herbert, dear old boy,' be said to his son, 'we have had a drubbing, and no mistake.'
The next occasion arose with the two general elections of January and December 1910. Both were about the same issue, the action of the House of Lords in rejecting Lloyd George's 'People's Budget' of 1909. It can be argued that there was strictly no need for a second election at all. In the somewhat analogous circumstances of a similar conflict between the two Houses in 1932 the monarch took the view that only one was necessary. However, both Edward VII and George V, who succeeded him in the middle of the crisis, considered that there should be two, and it was not surprising that the net result of the second was nearly the same as that of the first. Curiously enough the net figures mask a quite substantial changeover in seats. It was perhaps more by chance than anything else that Conserva- tive and Liberal gains almost exactly balanced each other.
We must now jump twelve years to the remark- able series of general elections which occurred in the early 1920s, the only occasion in recent his- tory when there have been three dissolutions of parliament in under three years. The changes in the parliamentary scene produced by the election of 1923 which came only a year after the previous one, and by that of 1924 eleven months later, were certainly striking. In the 1922 election the Con- servatives with 38 per cent of the vote secured 345 seats, a comfortable majority over all other parties combined. Labour with 29 per cent of the poll was the runner-up, capturing 142 seats. The Liberals fought as two hostile factions led re- spectively by Asquith and Lloyd George. Their combined vote was the same as Labour's but they obtained only 116 seats.
When Baldwin, with an incomprehensible folly which is still mysterious, dissolved Parliament a year later, the percentage of the poll secured by each party was almost the same as before, but in seats the Conservatives dropped to 258, Labour rose to 190, and the Liberals, who fought this time as a united party, won 159. This prima facie paradoxical result cannot, however, be dismissed merely as an example of the dottiness of the British electoral system. The Conservatives'fought sixty-four more seats than in 1922, and if they had not done this their percentage of the poll would obviously have been lower.
Much more sensational was the change which occurred in the 1924 election. The Liberals slumped disastrously. Their percentage of the poll dropped by twelve points and this was only par- tially caused by a fall in the number of seats which they contested. Labour went up three points to 33 per cent, and the Conservatives rose by ten to 48 per cent. But in terms of seats it was a landslide. The Conservatives gained 161, giving them a total representation in the House of 419. Labour, in spite of securing a million more votes (they fielded 83 more candidates) and a higher percentage of the poll, fell from 190 seats to 151. The Liberals lost their last chance of serious con- sideration as a party of government, losing 119 seats and declining to a mere 40 in the new House.
It is pretty clear, in spite of the notorious diffi- culty of interpreting electoral statistics, that dur- ing the inter-war years the Conservative gain was to some extent the Liberals' loss and that the for- tunes of the two parties tended to vary inversely. This still seems to have been true, possibly for the last time, in the election which ended the next of our short parliaments, the election of October 1951. In contrast with the experience of 1923-4, the change in seats compared with February 1950 was not startling. The Conservatives gained only 23, and Labour lost 20. It is hard to believe that the change in percentage of votes had no con- nection at all with a disastrous Liberal slump from 9 per cent to 2.5—a slump caused princi- pally by inability to put up more than 109 candi- dates compared with 475 at the previous election. As in 1924 Labour's share of the poll went up, but the Conservative share rose by rather more (4.5 per cent compared with 2.7), and it was just enough to put them in, although their total poll was actually a little less than Labour's.
What conclusion if any can one draw from this survey? The answer probably is very little. His- tory does not repeat itself. Precedents can be most misleading. For what it is worth the figures sug- gest that an election occurring within two years of the previous one has more often reversed the earlier decision than one occurring at a longer interval. Excluding 1964, there have been twenty- three parliaments since 1868 when for the first time electoral decisions can be described as reasonably clear-cut in the sense that the party allegiance of MPs was not in serious doubt. Eighteen of these lasted more than two years and exactly half the ensuing elections confirmed and half rejected the party in power; whereas in the case of the five short parliaments only one of the ensuing elections went in favour of the govern- ment of the day, and even so did not increase its majority.
On current form it certainly looks as if we shall have to add another. The Labour party managers, with time and the state of the economy running heavily against them, were probably wise to disregard precedents resting on such a thin statistical basis. Moreover, there is another conclusion to be drawn from them. Public opinion is evidently capable of great fluctuation in a very short period of time. Given the right circum- stances this could operate in favour of a govern- ment with a bare majority, as well as against it. By the time these words are in print the reader will know whether it has.
Previous page
