Talk:1987 United Kingdom general election

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BetacommandBot 05:30, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Alliance's Photo
Since Owen was in fact the Prime Minister-designate, would it not be more appropriate to include his image instead of Steel's? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lawrence142002 (talk • contribs) 01:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I thought the Alliance didn't have a "Prime Minister-designate" in this election - wasn't one of their major problems the inability of the two Davids to agree? Timrollpickering (talk) 06:36, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

First Black MPs
The article says that Messrs Grant and Abbott were the first black MPs. From memory, wasn't there at least one Indian (Parsee? Sikh?) MP in the 1890s? Depends on how you define "black" I suppose.Paulturtle (talk) 13:26, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Dadabhai Naoroji, a Parsi, elected in 1892. Wikipedia identifies him as "Asian".Paulturtle (talk) 13:29, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
 * See also Mancherjee Bhownagree and Shapurji Saklatvala. Warofdreams talk 18:53, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
 * All three Zoroastrian Parsis... More to the point, in 1888 four years before he was elected as an MP, Dadabhai Naoroji was referred to as 'a blackman' in a speech by the then Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. In London at the time was Muhammad Ali Jinnah, later to become the first Prime Minister of Pakistan. "If Dadabhai" - then a supporter of Britain's rule in India - "was black, I was blacker," Jinnah wrote to his sister. I'll change it to 'Afro-Caribbean' Lovingboth (talk) 21:56, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Bernard Weatherill
He fought this election as the incumbent speaker. There is no reference to "Speaker" in the results table, nor any asterisk attached to the Conservative seat total. Where is he? Robin S. Taylor (talk) 00:08, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:54, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * David Steel crop.jpg

Incumbents defeated section - date elected
For Enoch Powell the date elected is given as 1950. He was first elected to the House of Commons at the 1950 United Kingdom general election, but as a Conservative and for Wolverhampton South West. Famously he did not fight his seat at the February 1974 United Kingdom general election. In the October 1974 election he re-entered parliament as Ulster Unionist MP for South Down, a seat he held until this election. So should the date of election not be October 1974 as this was when he was first elected as an Ulster Unionist, first elected for South Down and the start of his continuous period in parliament. Roy Jenkins date elected is given 1982, when he was first elected as an SDP MP for Glasgow Hillhead, but like Powell he had previous service as an MP, having been first elected in 1948. Michael Ancram is also listed as 1979, but had previously served as MP for a different seat in 1974. Thus I think there needs to be some consistency here and Powell should be changed to match the others. Dunarc (talk) 19:22, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Second landslide
Someone keeps reverting my change. The Conservative victory in 1979 was not a landslide victory. 1983 was, as was 1987. So 1987 was the second landslide, not the third. Francis Pym was sacked by Thatcher in the run up to 1983 election for saying that "Landslides don't on the whole produce successful governments.". This was a comment at the time about the political landscape that was going to arise from the landslide that the tories were forecast to win at the 1983 election. His comment was about moving from a position of working but not landslide majority into one of a landslide majority after the 83 election and about his fears for the bad policies that Thatcher would (and subsequently did) pursue. Note that the article on the 1979 United Kingdom general election does NOT refer to that election as a landslide. Note on the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher article described only 1983 and 1987 as landslides. Marlarkey (talk) 13:38, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

The definitive review of the 1979 General Election by David Butler (psephologist) and Dennis Kavanagh "The British General Election of 1979" (Macmillan, 1980, ISBN-139780333269343) notes on p197 that "After the first few results it was plain that Mrs Thatcher had won -but without a landslide." Marlarkey (talk) 13:58, 26 January 2023 (UTC)