United Kingdom general election, 1966

United Kingdom general election, 1966

← 1964 31 March 1966 1970 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All 630 seats in the House of Commons 316 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	75.8% (1.3%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Harold Wilson Edward Heath Jo Grimond Party Labour Conservative Liberal Leader since 14 February 1963 28 July 1965 5 November 1956 Leader's seat Huyton Bexley Orkney and Shetland Last election 317 seats, 44.1% 304 seats, 43.4% 9 seats, 11.2% Seats won 364 253 12 Seat change 48 52 3 Popular vote 13,096,951 11,418,433 2,327,533 Percentage 48.0% 41.9% 8.5% Swing 3.9% 1.5% 2.7%
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results. * The BBC lists this result as 363 seats, due to the speaker's seat being listed as "other".
PM before election Harold Wilson Labour Subsequent PM Harold Wilson Labour

Harold Wilson
Labour

Harold Wilson
Labour

The 1966 United Kingdom general election on 31 March 1966 was won by incumbent Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson and was regarded as an easy victory. Wilson's decision to call a snap election turned on the fact that his government, elected a mere 17 months previously in 1964, had an unworkably small majority of only 4 MPs. The Labour government was returned following this snap election with a much larger majority of 96 seats.

Prior to the 1966 general election, Labour had performed poorly in local elections in 1965, and lost a by-election, cutting their majority to just 2. Labour ran its campaign with the slogan "You know Labour government works".

Shortly after the local elections, Sir Alec Douglas-Home was replaced by Edward Heath as Leader of the Conservative Party.

The Conservatives had not really had time to prepare their campaign, although it was more professional than previously. There had been little time for Heath to become well known among the British public, having led the party for just eight months before the election. For the Liberals, money was an issue: two elections in the space of just two years had left the party in a tight financial position.

The election night was broadcast live on the BBC, and was presented by Cliff Michelmore, Robin Day, Robert McKenzie and David Butler. The election was replayed on the BBC Parliament channel on the 40th anniversary of the event and again in 2016 to mark the 50th anniversary of the election.

Although the BBC's telecast was in black and white, a couple of colour television cameras were placed in the BBC election studio at Television Centre to allow CBS's Charles Collingwood and NBC's David Brinkley to file live reports from that studio by satellite and in colour for their respective networks' evening news programmes (which were transmitted at 11:30 P.M. British time; 6:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time).