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January 1910 United Kingdom general election
	← outgoing members elected members →
All 670 seats in the House of Commons; 336 seats needed for a majority
	Colours denote the winning party
Prime Minister before election; H. H. Asquith; Liberal	Appointed Prime Minister ; H. H. Asquith; Liberal

The January 1910 United Kingdom general election was held from 15 January to 10 February 1910. The government called the election in the midst of a constitutional crisis caused by the rejection of the People's Budget by the Conservative-dominated House of Lords, in order to get a mandate to pass the budget.

The general election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Conservative Party led by Arthur Balfour and their Liberal Unionist allies receiving the largest number of votes, but the Liberals led by H. H. Asquith winning the largest number of seats, returning two more MPs than the Conservatives. Asquith formed a government with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by John Redmond. Another general election was soon held in December.

The Labour Party, led by Arthur Henderson, continued to gather momentum, going from 29 seats to 40.

Results

England and Wales seat winners

?
274	272	71	40	8	5
Liberal	Conservative	IPP	Lab	AFI	O

UK General Election January 1910
			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Stood	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Conservative & Lib. Unionist	Arthur Balfour	594	272	130	14	+116	40.6	46.8	2,919,236	+3.4
	Liberal	H. H. Asquith	511	274	12	135	−123	40.9	43.5	2,712,511	−5.4
	Labour	Arthur Henderson	78	40	17	6	+11	6.0	7.0	435,770	+2.1
	Irish Parliamentary	John Redmond	85	71	0	11	−11	10.6	1.2	74,047	+0.6
	All-for-Ireland	William O'Brien	10	8	8	0	+8	1.2	0.4	23,605
	Independent Nationalist	N/A	10	3	3	2	+2	0.5	0.3	16,533
	Social Democratic Federation	H. M. Hyndman	9	0	0	0	0		0.2	13,479	−0.1
	Ind. Conservative	N/A	4	1	1	1	0	0.1	0.2	11,772
	Free Trader	John Eldon Gorst	4	0	0	0	0		0.2	11,553
	Independent Labour	N/A	6	0	0	1	−1		0.2	9,936
	Independent Liberal	N/A	3	1	1	0	+1	0.1	0.1	5,237
	Scottish Prohibition	Edwin Scrymgeour	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	756

Voting summary

Popular vote

Conservative & Liberal Unionist			46.8%
Liberal			43.5%
Labour			7.0%
Irish Parliamentary			1.2%
Independent			0.7%
Others			0.8%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats

Liberal			40.9%
Conservative and Liberal Unionist			40.6%
Irish Parliamentary			10.6%
Labour			6.0%
All-for-Ireland			1.2%
Independent			0.8%

References

Blewett, Neal (1972), The Peers, the Parties and the People: The General Elections of 1910^{[publisher missing]}
Clarke, P. F. (1975), "The electoral position of the Liberal and Labour parties, 1910-1914", English Historical Review, 90 (357): 828-836, doi:10.1093/ehr/xc.ccclvii.828
Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
O'Brien, Phillips Payson (2010), "The 1910 Elections and the Primacy of Foreign Policy", in Mulligan, William; Simms, Brendan (eds.), The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660-2000, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 249-259
Pelling, Henry (1967), Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910^{[publisher missing]}
Sykes, Alan (1979), Tariff Reform in British Politics: 1903-1913, Oxford University Press
Sykes, Alan (1975), "The Confederacy and the purge of the Unionist free traders, 1906-1910", Historical Journal, 18 (2): 349-366, doi:10.1017/S0018246X00023724
Wald, Kenneth D. (1978), "Class and the vote before the first world war", British Journal of Political Science, 8 (4): 441-457, doi:10.1017/S0007123400001496

External links

Manifestos

^ All parties shown.

[1] All parties shown.