United Kingdom
In February 1974, Conservative prime minister Edward Heath called a snap election for 28 February despite the deadline for an election being more than a year away. He urged British voters to "return a strong government with a firm mandate", but the election produced a hung parliament. The Tory government had the larger share of the vote, but the Labour opposition led by Harold Wilson had marginally more seats. Four days later, having failed to form a coalition with the Liberals, Heath resigned as prime minister and paved the way for Labour to return as a minority government under Wilson. Another election was held on 10 October that year, and Labour won by a three-seat majority.
Snap elections were eliminated by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.
Read more about this topic: Snap Elections
Famous quotes containing the words united and/or kingdom:
“Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet this is his very being.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“He is a strong man who can hold down his opinion. A man cannot utter two or three sentences, without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, namely, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or, in that of ideas and imagination, in the realm of intuitions and duty.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)