Talk:1918 United Kingdom general election

I have a cropped version
of William Adamson's photo for the info box, if an uploader can do the honours: http://lomjar.myby.co.uk/WilliamAdamson-cropped.jpg Mithy73 (talk) 16:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Query
How can Labour be shown as second party on 57 seats when Coalition Liberals had 127 seats and Sinn Féin had 73 seats?

It looks to me like the order of parties in the infobox is all over the place.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this?

--Gramscis cousinTalkStalk 11:08, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I've tried to put this right. I suspect the previous ordering was based on votes rather than seats, but it was wrong even in that case; I think it ought to be done in terms of seats anyway, since we always talk about the "winner" of an election and so on in seat terms.--Kotniski (talk) 14:04, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

The word "only"
The last paragraph of the lead originally said the 1918 elections were "the first and the only largely democratic and universal elections on the whole United Kingdom". Surely "the only" is a mistake or a bit of trolling. I have deleted it. 69.165.133.205 (talk) 21:01, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Non-couponed Conservatives in the infobox
I have merged the Conservatives and the Coalition Conservatives in the Infobox. The Infobox as it stands gives a very strong misimpression that there were two separate factions of the Conservative party standing in the election, and that the non-couponed Conservatives were anti-Coalition. This does not appear to have been the case, because it is clear from McEwen (1962), p. 2, that most of them were nothing of the sort - half of them were Irish Unionists, etc. It does strike me that someone might reasonably argue that since the Liberals are divided in the Infobox on the basis of whether they were couponed or not, the Conservatives ought to be divided similarly, but it seems to me that in the Liberal Party the issue of the coupons was the basis of a significant factional split so that they became fully separate parties in 1922, whereas in the case of the Conservatives there was no actual split at all. This change also has the advantage of allowing the gain/loss and swing figures to stop being a complete mess. The Infobox is meant to be a helpful summary, I believe, which it wasn't really before, whereas now it conveys succinctly the fact that the Tories effectively won the election in a landslide, etc. I am not any great expert in these matters, though, so if someone who knows what they're talking about thinks I'm wrong, do correct me. Dionysodorus (talk) 02:05, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I think your change is an improvement for the reason you state, even though it throws up an inconsistency. With regard to the Liberals, I think it is best to maintain a coupon split, even though a number of non-couponed Liberals elected had declared their support for the Coalition. I think it is also best in this article to ignore the events of 1919-1922 as they were nothing to do with the election. Graemp (talk) 18:22, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

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Infobox parties

 * A recent series of edits by User:FriendlyDataNerdV2 has deleted separate listings for Conservative/Unionist Party and also for Coalition Liberal merging them into one listing titled 'Coupon Coalition'. In the general elections of 1931, 1935 and 1945 there were also 2-3 separate parties who fought the election as coalition partners and in each of the wikipedia articles for these elections, those parties appear in the infobox separately. So the 1918 edit runs counter to these other articles. The 1931 talkpage contains a short discussion about this issue when one editor asked if the infobox should not be presented in the way the 1918 article currently is.
 * There is a discussion initiated by User:Dionysodorus under contents 5 of this talkpage which explains how we arrived at the previous infobox presentation.
 * There is a problem with using 'Coupon Coalition' as the title for the party in 1918. There was no party called 'Coupon Coalition'. For the articles of elections where parties campaigned as coalition partners, the infobox in each case (1895-1910, 1983-87) lists those parties by their names. So by using the term 'Coupon Coalition', this edit represents a departure.
 * The edit has chosen to include in the number of votes and seats for the 'Coupon Coalition', those obtained by non couponed Conservatives/Unionists, NDP and Coalition Labour who supported the coalition while excluding the votes and seats obtained by Liberals who supported the coalition. This is an infobox inconsistency which was avoided by the previous edit which assigned votes and seats to parties.
 * It should be noted that during the election campaign, the parties in the Coalition Government issued separate manifestos, maintained different leaders and in many cases stood candidates against each other. I think this means they should be presented separately in the infobox.
 * The 1918 election is an imperfect election which is difficult to categorise easily while retaining logic. I think the recent infobox edits are not an improvement on what previously existed. I have chosen not to revert these edits in an effort to first achieve a consensus here. Graemp (talk) 09:56, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Your argument is totally fair, I apologise - I checked the talk page but couldn't find a discussion, I should have looked back further! Have reverted to old infobox for now as I accept your view and will suggest something else here later. Sorry again - it just seemed to me a strange infobox to have for an election where the Tories and Coalition Liberals weren't competing against one another and fought the election essentially as 1 'force'. And if I excluded the Coalition Liberals, I'm doubly sorry, that was an honest mistake!


 * I hope we can still retain the results box though? I managed to design it in a way that shows the coalition total and each party's support/seats, I feel that works in a table FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 14:29, 25 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your response and actions. The changes you made to the Results Table removed info of party leader and number of candidates standing and elected. This format diverts from the standard format used in other similar articles, which is a little problematic. I think your change to remove the heading 'Opposition' was a good change as many candidates listed under Opposition were not opposed to the Coalition Government at the election. I have just realised that I was wrong above when I said that all NDP votes and seats were included under Coupon Coalition; those that received the coupon are detailed as 'Coalition National Democratic' in the right place but those who did not receive the coupon are currently listed in opposition under 'National Democratic' which is wrong as the party was unequivocally a coalition government party. I would prefer it if the term 'Coalition Government' were restored in place of 'Coupon Coalition'. I should point out that I have never checked to see if the data that has been contained in the results table is in fact correct. I suspect that there are errors/inconsistencies. I would also point out that there were a substantial number of constituencies where a Liberal faced a Unionist where the Coalition Government endorsement was given to the Liberal. ;Graemp (talk) 15:59, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Aye it was a complicated election and it's no doubt caused a fair amount of editors confusion, including myself. I see what you mean about party leader and candidates standing. Happy to add those in, won't be too hard.


 * I'm definitely good with changing it to Coalition Government too. Might be best to start over with the results as I've seen lots of edits and changes and I've noticed a few inconsistencies. This source is quite reliable: http://www.election.demon.co.uk/geresults.html It gives a total of 4,918,760 (47.1%), 473 seats for the Coalition.


 * One more thing to note - the infobox previously added the non-Coalition and Coalition Tories together, but they have been and continue to be seperate in the results box. Unless we combine them it's quite difficult to determine which grouping should be assigned the +/- percentage and seat changes. So there's an infobox/results box split here which will confuse people.


 * I think the solution here is to combine the Conservative groupings to allow for +/- from 1910, while adding a note explaining the split. Otherwise the +/- figures are invalid in the infobox and/or there will be an infobox/results box split. I think the most logical thing to do would be to set out the infobox with each of the parties, and their +/-, and the results box with an indication of the Coalition's strength. In the meantime to avoid inconsistency I've reverted to the old results box.

FriendlyDataNerdV2

The "seats by party" table doesn't seem to show the Irish Unionist/Ulster Unionist figures (shown in purple on the map, so not trivial).
Or at least not as far as I can see? --Red King (talk) 13:24, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I have half-fixed this from the Irish election page but some data fields are empty. --Red King (talk) 21:58, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The source cited for this article does not show them seperately, which is why the table doesn't. Unless you have another source for the election figures, we have to go on what reliable sources say, and those sources combine the Conservatives and the Unionists - rightly so, as in practice they were the same party in Westminster. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 13:58, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, I accept that. But it leaves the problem that tbe north-east corner of Ireland is shown purple but there is no explanation. So why is it not blue? Or at least why is there not an explanatory note? --Red King (talk) 19:45, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Good point - I think until someone re-does the map we may have to remove it, as it also shows 'Coalition Conservative' (dark blue) when there wasn't really a distinction between Coalition Con and Conservatives generally. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 08:08, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Size of the House
At 707 members, this appears to have been Britain's largest ever House of Commons. The drop to 615 members in the next election can be explained by the secession of Ireland, but there is no mention of any constituency changes which could account for the extra 37 seats compared to earlier elections. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 20:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 13:21, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Lord Croft.jpg

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
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Coalition Liberal/National Liberal Confusion
The Transfer of Seats section shows seat transfers to the National Liberals, but they weren't formed until 1922. I think these are meant to be referring to Coalition Liberals? --Gharbhain (talk) 20:04, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Influenza
As this election and its campaign happened during the severe 1918-19 influenza pandemic, a mention of the effect of this illness on the election would be relevant. Boleslaw (talk) 04:49, 25 January 2023 (UTC)