The British General Election of 2010: The Results Analysed

Abstract

The 2010 election was fought against the backdrop of both economic recession and political scandal. Yet although the incumbent Labour government was clearly rejected by the voters, the principal opposition party, the Conservatives made only a modest advance. Fewer voters backed one or other the two largest parties than ever before. Meanwhile, for only the second time since 1945, no one party secured an overall majority. In this paper we analyse the constituency level election results in order to identify possible explanations of the parties’ performances and to account for the outcome in seats.

Keywords: UK, elections, voting, electoral system