Memories of the last general election at Christmas – Yorkshire Post Letters

THE 2019 general election will be the first at Christmas since 1923 – 96 years ago. The prevailing season spirit of feeling good and goodwill might favour the party in power. But that did not happen in 1923 when Stanley Baldwin needlessly called for a general election.

General Election 2019: Seven things you may have missed on Yorkshire’s campaign trail this week

He lost 86 seats, the result being Conservative 258, Labour 191, and Liberal 158 – the nearest approach to a three party tie in British political history.

He was ousted by a combination of the first Labour Government under Ramsay MacDonald, with Liberal support. The combination collapsed less than a year later due to the fraudulent Zinoviev letter, said to have been sent by the Russian politician to Communist and Labour leaders advocating a revolution.

Let’s learn from murder of my sister Jo Cox and keep the general election civilised – Kim Leadbeater

At the subsequent election, Baldwin this time won 412 seats. The Labour party never had an overall majority in the Commons until the 1945 post-war electoral landslide – 21 years after the first Labour government.