A general election was held in the United Kingdom on 6 May 2010 to elect 650 MPs to the House of Commons. This was the first election to be held after the minimum age of candidacy was reduced from 21 to 18. As of 2026, it remains the last UK general election to produce a Prime Minister who lasted a full term of office.
It resulted in the Labour government losing its 66-seat majority; however, with the opposition Conservative Party ending up with only 306 elected MPs, it was also the first election since that of February 1974 to result in a hung parliament. The Conservatives entered government (at first in partnership with the Liberal Democrats) and remained in office for 14 years until 2024.
During the campaign, the three main party leaders engaged in the first televised debates. The Liberal Democrats achieved a breakthrough in opinion polls following the first debate, in which their leader Nick Clegg was widely seen as the strongest performer. Nonetheless, on polling day their share of the vote increased by only 1%, with a net loss of five seats. This was still the Liberal Democrats' largest popular vote since the party's creation in 1988; they found themselves in a pivotal role in the formation of the new government. The share of votes for parties other than Labour or the Conservatives was 35%, the largest since the 1918 general election. It was the most 'three-cornered' election in terms of votes since 1923, and in terms of seats since 1929. The Green Party of England and Wales won its first ever seat in the House of Commons, and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland also gained its first elected member. The general election saw a 5.1% national swing from Labour to the Conservatives, the third-largest since 1945. The result in one constituency, Oldham East and Saddleworth, was subsequently declared void on petition because of illegal practices during the campaign (see 2011 Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election); it was the first such instance since 1910.
A hung parliament had been largely anticipated by the opinion polls in the run-up to the election, so politicians and voters were better prepared for the constitutional process that would follow such a result than they had been in 1974. The coalition government that was subsequently formed was the first to result directly from a UK election. The hung parliament came about in spite of the Conservatives managing a higher share of the vote than the previous Labour government had done in 2005, when it had secured a comfortable majority. Coalition talks began immediately between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, and lasted for five days. There was an attempt to put together a Labour – Liberal Democrat coalition (though 11 seats from other smaller parties would have been required). To facilitate this, Gordon Brown announced on the evening of Monday 10 May that he would resign as Leader of the Labour Party. Just after midnight on 12 May, the Liberal Democrats approved the coalition agreement with the Conservatives 'overwhelmingly'.
A total of 149 sitting MPs stood down at the election, the highest since 1945, including many former New Labour Cabinet ministers such as former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Alan Milburn, Geoff Hoon, Ruth Kelly, James Purnell and John Reid. One reason for the very high number of MPs standing down was the parliamentary expenses scandal a year earlier.
A record 228 new MPs were elected at the election. Many of the Conservative MPs elected for the first time became ministers in government. Notable newcomers who were elected to parliament in 2010 include future Prime Minister Liz Truss; future Chancellors of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Sajid Javid, Kwasi Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi; future Home Secretaries Amber Rudd, Priti Patel and Shabana Mahmood; future Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson; future Leaders of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg and Penny Mordaunt; future Health Secretary Matt Hancock; and future Deputy Prime Ministers Dominic Raab and Thérèse Coffey.
Background
On 6 April 2010, the prime minister, Gordon Brown, visited Buckingham Palace for a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II to ask her to dissolve Parliament on 12 April, confirming in a live press conference in Downing Street, as had long been speculated, that the election would be held on 6 May, five years since the previous election on 5 May 2005. The election took place on 6 May in 649 constituencies across the United Kingdom, under the first-past-the-post system, for seats in the House of Commons. Voting in the Thirsk and Malton constituency was postponed for three weeks because of the death of a candidate.
The governing Labour Party campaigned to secure a fourth consecutive term in office, and to restore support lost since 2001 due to the Iraq War. The Conservative Party sought to gain a dominant position in British politics after losses in the 1990s, and to replace Labour as the governing party. The Liberal Democrats hoped to make gains from both sides and hoped to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Since the televised debates between the three leaders, the Lib Dems' poll ratings had risen to the point where many considered the possibility of a role for the party in forming the government. Polls just before election day saw a slight swing from the Liberal Democrats back to Labour and Conservatives, with the majority of final polls falling within one point of each of the three parties' final vote shares. The Scottish National Party, encouraged by its victory in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, set itself a target of 20 MPs and was hoping to find itself holding a balance of power, though it ultimately fell short, winning just 6 seats – the same as in 2005.
Smaller parties which had achieved success at local elections and the 2009 European elections (UK Independence Party, Green Party, British National Party, etc.) looked to extend their representation to seats in the House of Commons. The Greens successfully achieved their first-ever seat in the House of Commons – Caroline Lucas won the constituency of Brighton Pavilion, marking an historic breakthrough for the party – though other parties failed to win any seats.
The Democratic Unionist Party looked to maintain, if not extend, its number of seats. However, they instead fell from 9 to 8 seats, though they maintained their position as the fourth-largest party in the House of Commons.
Key dates
The key dates were:
MPs declining re-election
This election had an unusually high number of MPs choosing not to seek re-election, with more standing down than did so at the 1945 general election (which on account of the extraordinary wartime circumstances came ten years after the preceding election). This has been attributed to the 2009 expenses scandal and the fact there was talk that redundancy-style payments for departing MPs might be scrapped after the election.
In all, 149 MPs (100 Labour, 35 Conservatives, 7 Liberal Democrats, 2 Independents, 1 Independent Conservative and 1 member each from the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the DUP, and the SDLP) decided not to contest the election. Additionally, three seats were vacant at the time of the dissolution of Parliament; two due to the deaths of Labour MPs and one due to the resignation in January 2010 of a DUP member.
Boundary changes
Each of the four national boundary commissions is required by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 (as amended by the Boundary Commissions Act 1992) to conduct a general review of all the constituencies in its part of the United Kingdom every eight to twelve years to ensure the size and composition of constituencies are as fair as possible. Based on the Rallings and Thrasher studies using ward-by-ward data from local elections and the 2005 general election, the new boundaries used in 2010 would have returned nine fewer Labour MPs had they been in place at the previous election; given that there were to be four more seats in the next parliament, this notionally reduced Labour's majority from 66 to 48.
Pursuant to Boundary Commission for England recommendations, the number of seats in England increased by four, and numerous changes were made to the existing constituency boundaries.
Northern Ireland continued to elect 18 MPs, but minor changes were made to the eastern constituencies in accordance with the Northern Ireland Boundary Commission's recommendations. For the first time, these changes include the splitting of an electoral ward between two constituencies.
Following the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for Wales, the total number of seats remained at 40, although new seats caused by radical redrawing of boundaries in Clwyd and Gwynedd were fought for the first time: Arfon and Dwyfor Meirionnydd replaced Caernarfon and Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, respectively; Aberconwy replaced Conwy. At the time of the election Welsh constituencies had electorates on average around 14,000 smaller than their counterparts in England.
Scotland saw its most recent large-scale review completed in 2004, so its 59 constituencies remained the same as at the 2005 general election.
Contesting parties
Main parties
For the leaders of all three major political parties, this was their first general election contest as party leader – something that had last occurred at the 1979 election. Incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown had taken office in June 2007 following the end of Tony Blair's 13 years as leader of the Labour Party, while David Cameron had succeeded Michael Howard in December 2005 and Nick Clegg had succeeded Menzies Campbell (who had never previously contested a general election) in December 2007.
The prospect of a coalition or minority government was being considered well before polling day. Gordon Brown made comments about the possibility of a coalition in January 2010. In 2009, it was reported that senior civil servants were to meet with the Liberal Democrats to discuss their policies, an indication of how seriously the prospect of a hung parliament was being taken.
Other parties
Other parties with representation at Westminster after the previous general election included the Scottish National Party, with six parliamentary seats, Plaid Cymru from Wales with three seats, and Respect – The Unity Coalition and Health Concern, each of which held one parliamentary seat in England. Since that election, the SNP had won the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections and gained control of the Scottish Government, and also won the largest share of the 2009 European Parliament election vote in Scotland. In Wales, the Labour Party remained the largest party in the Welsh Assembly, although Plaid Cymru increased their share of the vote and formed a coalition government with Labour.
In 2009 the Ulster Unionist Party and the Conservative Party announced they had formed an electoral alliance whereby the two parties would field joint candidates for future elections under the banner of "Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force". However, this caused the sole UUP MP Lady Sylvia Hermon to resign from the party on 25 March 2010, leaving them with no representation at Westminster for the first time in their history.
Many constituencies were contested by other, smaller parties. Parties that won no representatives at Westminster in 2005 but have seats in the devolved assemblies or European Parliament included the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the Progressive Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, the British National Party, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and the Green parties in the UK: the Green Party of England and Wales, the Scottish Green Party, and the Green Party in Northern Ireland. In 2009, Nigel Farage announced his intention to resign as UKIP leader to focus on becoming an MP. Farage was replaced in an election by party members by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, whose stated intention was for the electoral support of UKIP to force a hung parliament. The Green Party of England and Wales voted to have a position of leader for the first time; the first leadership election was won by Caroline Lucas, who successfully contested the constituency of Brighton Pavilion.
In addition, a new loose coalition, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), contested a general election for the first time. TUSC was a grouping of left wing parties that participated in the 2009 European Parliament elections under the name of No2EU; members included the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Alliance, Socialist Resistance, and is supported by some members of UNISON, the National Union of Teachers, the University and College Union, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, and the Public and Commercial Services Union. Several members of these unions ran as candidates under the TUSC banner. However, some former members of NO2EU, such as the Liberal Party and the Communist Party of Britain, chose not to participate in the TUSC campaign. The coalition did not run candidates against left wing Labour or Respect candidates.
Campaign
April
The prospective Labour candidate for Moray, Stuart Maclennan, was sacked after making offensive comments on his Twitter page, referring to elderly voters as "coffin dodgers" and voters in the North of Scotland as "teuchters", and insulting politicians such as Cameron, Clegg, John Bercow and Diane Abbott.
The UKIP candidate for Thirsk and Malton—John Boakes—died, causing the election in the constituency to be postponed until 27 May.
Philip Lardner, the Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, was suspended from the party for comments he made about homosexuality on his website, describing it as not "normal behaviour". Andrew Fulton, the chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, called the comments "deeply offensive and unacceptable", adding: "These views have no place in the modern Conservative party." However, he still appeared as a Conservative candidate because it was too late to remove his name from the ballot paper.
A total of 2,378 postal voters in Bristol West were wrongly sent ballot papers for Bristol East by mistake. Bristol City Council officials asked people to tear up the wrong papers and said: "Every effort will be made to ensure delivery [of new ballot papers] by 30 April."
The SNP attempted but failed to ban the broadcast of the final party leaders' debate in Scotland, in a court action. They had argued that "the corporation [the BBC] had breached its rules on impartiality by excluding the SNP". The judge, Lady Smith, ruled that "the SNP's case 'lacks the requisite precision and clarity'" and added she could not "conclude the BBC had breached impartiality rules". Additionally, broadcasting regulator Ofcom ruled that it had not "upheld complaints received from the SNP and Plaid Cymru about The First Election Debate broadcast on ITV1 on Thursday 15 April 2010".
The leader of the UK Independence Party, Lord Pearson, wrote an open letter to Somerset newspapers, asking voters to support Conservative candidates, rather than UKIP candidates in the Somerton and Frome, Taunton Deane and Wells constituencies. This action was criticised by UKIP candidates who refused to stand down.
The Labour candidate for Bristol East and former MP Kerry McCarthy revealed information about postal votes cast in the constituency on Twitter. Avon and Somerset Police said they were "looking into a possible alleged breach of electoral law". Bristol City Council stated: "This is a criminal matter and [it] will be for the police to decide what action to take."
The former Prime Minister Tony Blair returned to the campaign trail for Labour, visiting a polyclinic in Harrow West, following a troubled Labour campaign.
Postal voters in the marginal Vale of Glamorgan constituency had to be issued with new ballot papers after mistakenly being told they did not have to sign applications for postal votes.
A group of entrepreneurs warned on the dangers of a Labour-Liberal coalition in an open letter to The Times on 29 April.