Liberal Democrats and Peripheral Politics

Abstract

Since the 1920s the battle to win seats in the House of Commons and to form a government has been fought between Conservative and Labour. But in the 1970s other groupings gained a lot more votes and a few more seats. In 1983 and 1987 the third parties elected over 40 MPs and secured 25 percent of the popular vote. Only the disproportional effects of the electoral system prevented the fragmentation of the vote in the country being reflected accurately in the House of Commons. In general elections in the 1950s Conservative and Labour provided the top two candidates in over 95 percent of seats. In the 1980s they provided them in less than half. But this third force was extremely heterogeneous, encompassing Liberals, Social Democrats, Welsh and Scottish nationalists and five different parties in Northern Ireland.