The UK general election, 1983 was held on June 9, 1983 and gave the Conservatives and Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945. Thatcher had been extremely unpopular during her first two years in office but following a swift and decisive victory in the Falklands War and reasonable improvements in the economy her reputation was transformed.
The campaign displayed the huge divisions between the two major parties. The Conservative's key issues were employment, economic growth and defence. Labour's Manifesto pledged to leave the European Economic Community, abolish the House of Lords, abandon the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent by cancelling Trident and removing Cruise - a heady mix of far-left thinking, dubbed by Gerald Kaufman "the longest suicide note in history", "although, at barely thirty-seven pages, it only seemed interminable" noted Roy Hattersley. Over the campaign Labour were repeatedly forced to moderate their views, especially on defence.
On the day the opposition vote was almost evenly split between the Alliance and Labour. The Labour vote fell by over 3 million from 1979, with a national swing of almost 4% towards the Conservatives. The Conservative vote actually fell slightly but the disarray of their opponents gave them a majority of 144 and Labour had its worst performance since 1918. Veteran political journalist Michael White, writing in The Guardian, commented, "There was something magnificently brave about Michael Foot's campaign - but it was like the Battle of the Somme." [1]
The SDP-Liberal Alliance was only 675,985 votes behind the Labour opposition, but received 186 fewer seats. The Liberals argued that a fairer electoral system would have given them the number seats they deserved. Changing the electoral system was a long-running Liberal Party promise (later adopted by the Liberal Democrats). However, this idea was rejected by the Conservative government, and the issue has not achieved sustained national interest since.
Foot resigned soon after the election and was succeeded by Neil Kinnock.
Data from Guardian daily polls published in The Guardian between May and June 1983 Colour Key: BLUE Conservative, RED Labour, ORANGE Alliance, BLACK Others
Following boundary changes in 1983, the BBC and ITN (Independent Television News) co-produced a calculation of how the 1979 general election would have gone if fought on the new 1983 boundaries. The following table shows the effects of the boundary changes on the House of Commons:
This election was fought under revised boundaries. The changes reflect those comparing to the notional results on the new boundaries. One significant change was the increase in the number of seats allocated to Northern Ireland from 12 to 17.
