On Thursday 31 March 1966, the 1966 United Kingdom general election was held in England, to elect all 630 members of the House of Commons, with 511 constituencies being in England.
The election took place only 17 months after the 1964 United Kingdom general election, with incumbent Prime Minister Harold Wilson deciding to call a snap election since his government had an unworkably small majority of only four MPs. Combined with results from across the UK, the result was a landslide victory for Wilson's Labour Party.
It was the last election at which the National Liberal Party stood candidates, before merging with its allies the Conservative Party in 1968.
Candidates
Below is a table summarising the candidates of the 1964 general election in England.
Analysis
The incumbent Labour Party led by Prime Minister Harold Wilson won 286 seats in England, its second-highest tally of seats at the time. On the other hand, the Conservative Party, and its constituency allies the National Liberals, led by Edward Heath won only 216 seats, its lowest share of seats since the 1945 general election. It was also only the second time that the Labour Party had won more seats than the Conservatives in England since 1945.
The National Liberal Party only stood candidates in England at this election, with party losing all its seats in Scotland and Wales in 1964. Three of its MPs retained seats in England at this election, however it lost three of the six seats it had in the previous election. These were of Julian Ridsdale in Harwich, David Renton in Huntingdonshire and John Nott in St Ives. However, it lost the seat of Holland with Boston to its ally the Conservative Party, with National Liberal MP Herbert Butcher retiring from Parliament, and Conservative Richard Body winning the seat. It also lost Bristol North East and Bradford West to the Labour Party. The three remaining National Liberals resolved to formally merge with the Conservative Party after the election in 1968.
The Labour Party won an overall 40 seats from the Conservatives and National Liberal Party in England, though Patrick Duffy lost Colne Valley to Richard Wainwright of the Liberal Party. The Labour party would, however, regain the seat from the Liberal Party in the 1970 general election. The Liberal Party also won Cheadle and North Cornwall from the Conservative Party.
It was the only election between 1945 and 1997 general election in which the Labour Party won a majority of seats in England. Concurrently, this was the only election between 1945 and 1997 in which the Labour Party got a working majority in the House of Commons sufficient to last a full term in office (In 1950, 1964 and October 1974, the Labour majority was 5, 4 and 3 seats respectively).
By region
Note: the following tables indicate the results according to the regions of England which were established in 1994, based on the county boundaries established in the 1974 local government reforms. These regions were not used at the time for the purposes of this election.