Rare December poll is a dark day for democracy
Never in living memory have so many voters going to the polls been so much in the dark.
Sunrise today, roughly 8am (it depends on exactly where you live). Sunset, just before 4pm.
Cold, too.
Enough to put you off voting altogether, although it seems the notion that people are less likely to turn out to vote in winter elections is a myth.
The last winter general election was on February 28, 1974, when the turnout was just a smidgeon short of 79 per cent. The turnout in the general election immediately before that, on June 18, 1970, was 72 per cent, and you can’t blame the World Cup as England had already been knocked out (by Germany, 3-2 after extra time in the quarter final).
Delving back further into wintry electoral history, before that we had the poll of February 23, 1950. In 1935 the general election was on November 14.
But for a general election in the depths of December, we have to go back nigh on 100 years, to December 6, 1923. And we may as well throw in that the 1918 general election was on December 14.
So winter general elections are not common, but are certainly not unknown.
But let’s snuggle up in front of the roaring coal fire, if you’ve managed to get any coal because there’s a miners’ strike on, and recall that last winter general election.
To get the 1970s atmosphere right, you need to turn off the lights or, indeed, the entire electrics at the fuse box, because this was an era of power cuts to save energy and of people stocking up on candles.
That was nothing to do with saving the planet, by the way. It was all to do with preserving dwindling coal stocks.
Dig out your platform shoes too if you really want to get in the zone.
Power blackouts, a three-day week, and general misery were all part of the lead-up to what became an epic showdown.
The February 1974 general election was a direct confrontation between the Conservative government of Prime Minister Ted Heath, and the miners’ union, which had ramped up a work-to-rule into an all-out strike in pursuit of a pay claim.
(Miners – a body of workers who extracted fossil fuel from the ground. Unions – workers’ organisations which negotiated on their behalf for such things as better pay and conditions).
Well, Ted wasn’t having the country being held to ransom. So he called a general election for February 28 with the underlying theme “Who governs the country?”
The forecast for polling day was mainly cloudy, with some light scattered showers, with a maximum temperature of a distinctly chilly 5C.
Rain, sleet, and snow pushed into western areas during the day – probably mainly affecting Wales, because we do know that bitterly cold winds and flurries of snow were reported in Wrexham and the count in Caerphilly was held up because a vehicle bringing back ballot boxes got stuck in snow.
As for the result, the short story is that Ted Heath lost, and Labour under Harold Wilson got in.
The slightly longer story is that Labour got the greatest number of seats but not enough for an overall majority, and for several days Heath tried to reach an agreement with the Liberals which would have allowed him to continue to govern, but the talks broke down.
Labour hung on as a minority government until Wilson called a second general election later in the year which gave him a slender overall majority.
Now back to December 1923, when election day was mild and dry, and turnout was 71 per cent – for comparison, it was 69 per cent in the 2017 general election. As in 1974, the backdrop was an attempt by a Conservative Prime Minister, in this case Stanley Baldwin, to strengthen his grip, and as in 1974 it went spectacularly wrong.
The Tories went backwards, losing seats hand over fist, but remaining the biggest single party with 258 MPs. However, the Liberals had 158 MPs, and Labour, which had been growing in strength, had 191 MPs.
The upshot was that it was impossible for the Tories to continue in office, and the UK got its first Labour government in a Parliament divided three ways. It was the last general election in which a third party, in this case the Liberals, gained more than 100 seats.
As a matter of interest among the election antics in the village of Worthen were the homes of Conservatives being daubed with Liberal Party colours, and two white cows being painted red, while Tory supporters were at it as well, smearing blue paint on pigs belonging to local Liberals.
They were different times, of course.
Nobody paints cows and pigs nowadays.
