Talk:1886 United Kingdom general election

Using a graph
Do you guys think you can use this picture in the article? Yonatan (contribs/talk) 15:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not see why not. I have put the graph on the article page. Thanks for this image. --Gary J 12:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't wish to be mean, but does anyone else believe that this pie chart is a) Unbelievably large and b) rather ugly? It says it was done with Excel, surely Excel can pump out a better pie chart than that. There is also the issue that in 54 elections, one just for 1886 is rather lonely. It might be worth creating reasonably sized pie charts for common usage in all UK election pages, but there is one hurdle to face: There are many elections which have parties with one seat, which then disappear next election, which don't tend to look fantastic in pie charts (or in many other charts) which are better representing larger (5%+) groups. Mikebloke 20:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Not a Coalition
The figures show the Tories and Liberal Unionists being in coalition, which I don't believe is strctly true. It was more in the nature of a "confidence and supply" arrangement - in a vote of confidence or passing the budget (or opposing Home Rule) the Liberal Unionists would have voted to keep Salisbury in office rather than Gladstone. But they still hoped for reunion and Hartington was seen as the natural Liberal leader (as indeed he had been in the late 1870s) when Gladstone retired. It was a big deal when Goschen took office as Chancellor at the end of 1886 (replacing Lord Randolph Churchill), but in the 1892-5 Parliament Joseph Chamberlain sat in the traditional "resigned minister" seat behind and to Gladstone's right. By 1895 the two unionist parties most certainly were in coalition. I'm guessing the data was copied from a source and so can't easily be amended.MonachusLuscus (talk) 12:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed - this is a problem for the 1892 and 1895 elections as well, I think. By 1900, I suppose we can treat the Liberal Unionists as a faction in a general "Unionist" party, but in 1886, 1892, and 1895 they were pretty clear a distinct party - and one that was not yet clearly going to merge into the Conservatives.  I think they should be given their own heading in the table, and their own heading in the infobox, with Hartington as their leader (and likely continuing as their leader in the Lords in 1892 and 1895). john k (talk) 01:15, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Figures
Some of the figures here don't seem to add up correctly. In the table of the article it is stated that the Conservatives got 51.1 percent of the vote while the figures next to the graph below say that they got 53,08 percent of the vote. --Maxl (talk) 21:19, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Full results
I have amended the tables showing the results in line with Craig and, in the case of Ireland, Walker (albeit amending for two seats where Walker shows Nationalist candidates as Liberals). The full results are here. Marplesmustgo (talk) 13:07, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Category:Elections not won by the popular vote winner
I am not sure why this is in Category:Elections not won by the popular vote winner as the figures would suggest that this is not the case (although possibly this is because of the combining of Liberal Unionist and Conservative votes which is dubious at this point as some Liberal Unionists still hoped for a reconciliation with the Liberal Party). On top of that the issue for any nineteenth century election is that national vote share is misleading due to large the numbers of unopposed returns. This meant that it was possible for an MP to be elected with no votes (but in reality due to the nature of the seat had their been a contest a candidate would have got a high share of the vote). For instance Gladstone was unopposed in Midlothian, so did not benefit the national Liberal share, but in 1885 had been elected by a significant vote which pushed up the overall Liberal share. Dunarc (talk) 22:52, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Map / Chart
The map doesn't really accord with the chart provided. The map seems to show "Crofter MPs" in three Highland constituencies, but this is not reflected in the chart. 84.231.68.8 (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2023 (UTC)