General Election October 1974

[Harry Hayfield]

Thanks to our friends at BBC Parliament (who I think we should ask if they would care to be a patron of the Society) we have an archive general election to get our teeth into on Friday, namely October 1974 (to mark the 40th anniversary of the last time a second general election was held in the same year) so I think what better way to promote our Society than by a live tweeting exercise on the day (from 0900 BST to 2345 BST). Anyone else game (or would Clacton and Heywood and Middleton spoil things)?

[Zardoz]

Oct 5, 2014 6:56:10 GMT Harry Hayfield said:

Thanks to our friends at BBC Parliament (who I think we should ask if they would care to be a patron of the Society) we have an archive general election to get our teeth into on Friday, namely October 1974 (to mark the 40th anniversary of the last time a second general election was held in the same year) so I think what better way to promote our Society than by a live tweeting exercise on the day (from 0900 BST to 2345 BST). Anyone else game (or would Clacton and Heywood and Middleton spoil things)?

I remember it well! It was the second GE that I followed closely (I was 11 at the time of the 1970 GE). I'll set my TiVo box to record.

[Philip Davies]

Watching this one at the moment. One random fact is that the reporter Philip Tibenham is the grandfather of the husband of a girl I went to school with.

From the wrong thread:

Oct 13, 2014 8:19:27 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

I've got the 2nd part on in the background, and they're interviewing Tom Arnold.  He looks about 40, so I was somewhat surprised when they announced he was 27, two years younger than I am now.

Politicians, like footballers, clearly looked older in those days!

He was my MP for 18 years. This was the first time I can ever recall seeing him being interviewed. I don't remember him ever being on the local news or NortWestMinster.

[Andrew_S]

Yes I noticed that as well. Tom Arnold looks pretty middle-aged in the 1979 guide to the House of Commons when he was in fact 32.

Until about the 1980s a lot of people looks older than they were by today's standards. Harriet Harman today would be thought of as about 40 by 1970s standards.

[iain]

At 08:43 on this video the BBC show a map of the October 1974 election on the 1997 boundaries:

[Andrew_S]

May 29, 2015 12:38:43 GMT iain said:

At 08:43 on this video the BBC show a map of the October 1974 election on the 1997 boundaries:

Are you sure? I thought it was the Oct 1974 election on the 1974-83 boundaries.

[iain]

No it is definitely the 1997 boundaries - look at the rural Scottish seats in the Highlands and North East, and I also notice that Ceredigion & Pembroke North is shown. North Devon is another giveaway.

[afleitch]

Yes, it's the 1997 boundaries (though for the purposes of these sorts of maps they were never accurate; you had to be able to see seats from a distance so they were distorted slightly) though I wonder how they calculated it because they have given Stirling, a seat that did not exist to the Conservatives. I've calculated 'notional' results for the 1983-1997 boundaries so it's interesting to see this attempt.

[Pete Whitehead]

I think its based purely on geographical area and the greater part of the area of the Stirling seat was then in Kinross & West Perthshire. I've done similar maps to this myself and would take the same approach so for example Corby would be coloured blue then despite being a notional Labour seat and the greater part of the electorate being within a Labour seat

[afleitch]

May 29, 2015 18:09:13 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I think its based purely on geographical area and the greater part of the area of the Stirling seat was then in Kinross & West Perthshire. I've done similar maps to this myself and would take the same approach so for example Corby would be coloured blue then despite being a notional Labour seat and the greater part of the electorate being within a Labour seat

I'm not sure. Even using that rule, they've given Falkirk seats to the SNP and given them North Tayside but not Perth, which they won.