The British General Election of 1992

Nuffield Election Studies #14

by David Edgeworth Butler, Dennis Kavanagh

This volume is the 14th in a series of studies begun in 1945 which have chronicled every postwar election. The historical background, the party preparation and the events of the campaign are recorded, together with analyses of the polls, the press, broadcast coverage and the candidates.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Sir David Edgeworth Butler, CBE, FBA was an English political scientist who made a major contribution to the study of UK elections, particularly through the series of Nuffield Election Studies which has covered every UK general election since 1945. Butler was a commentator on the BBC's election night coverage from 1950 to 1979 and was a co-inventor of the swingometer. He later appeared as an electoral analyst on various television and radio programmes, including for ITV on the night of the 1997 general election, and Sky News election night coverage in 2001. He also appeared as a guest on the BBC's coverage of both the 2010 and 2015 general elections.

[with thanks to Wikipedia]

Reviews

[AndrewMillerTheSecond · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an immensely confusing election. The economy was in recession; the Labour Party nursed a (albeit small) lead in the polls; talking heads were speaking of a hung parliament and the bumbling nature of the Tory strategy; and the governing party had been in power for 13 years. How the hell did John Major pull it off?

That’s the question The British General Election of 1992 seeks to answer in yet another volume of the famous Nuffield election studies. I had no frame of reference for the series or even other books on British politics and elections, so my opinion on this book could change in retrospect. Regardless, I found it an enjoyable and comprehensive account of the campaign that placed the race into a broader context. Authors David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh don’t claim to have all the answers–time may have provided them more clues–but they offer a series of reasons while chronicling the twists and turns of the campaign from the perspective of the parties and the media.

The book starts with the political background of the first Major government, then accounts each party’s approach to the campaign; 3 chapters are devoted to the various aspects of the media (polls, TV, tabloids) and another 2 on the demography of the candidates for Parliament and the state of local electioneering. While I admittedly found the two preceding chapters to be dry, the book really shines in its more reflective final section on the implications of the election. Given the upcoming Labour landslide of 1997, the talk of the Tories as the “natural governing party” of Britain is intriguing for just how wrong it would prove to be. If anything, it entices the reader to research how the tables turned so quickly to produce prolonged Labour dominance. The book also readily admits that the Conservative victory was incredibly tenuous, just around 1,000 votes in some close constituencies away from becoming a minority government. This comes from the 2nd Appendix, which operates as the 14th chapter of the thirteen listed. Potential factors in the electoral swings are analyzed, such as tabloid circulation (which supposedly boosted the Tories) and regional unemployment rates (which supposedly boosted Labour). I won’t say much more on that because it’s an enriching chapter that you shouldn’t skip over. That’s all I have to say on this book… I wavered between a 4 and a 5 for this mostly because it did not contain the academic rigor and history of the party systems of Letting the People Decide, but this is a delightful book if you want to learn about the ‘92 UK election.