By Stephen Fisher, 5th July 2024
Yesterday was the tenth time since 1922 that voters in Britain kicked out a government after an economic crisis.
What was truly extraordinary is that since the 2019 election the Conservatives twice changed prime minister in an attempt to rescue themselves, each after an economic crisis, and then Rishi Sunak presided over a third economic crisis.
Governments tend to win elections, except after economic crises. That tendency now accounts for 20 of the last 28 elections. In a further three elections the government rescued themselves by changing prime minister after a crisis (dropping Lloyd George in 1922, dropping Eden after Suez, and dropping Thatcher after the 1990 recession). So, a combination of economic crises and political changes at the top can account for who governed after 23 of the last 28 elections, including all the elections since 1987.
Yesterday’s election result fits a theory of UK elections I developed in this paper and summarised in this bloglast year, in which an economic crisis is defined to be a recession or a devaluation from a fixed exchange rate. The table below shows how all 28 elections since 1922 fit that pattern, or not. The blog discusses how the exceptions are either near misses of exceptional short-parliaments.
Table: Economic crises, post-crisis political changes of PM and government electoral fortunes since 1922
| Post-Crisis Political Change of PM | Government won | Government lost | Total | |
| No economic crisis | No | 10(1935, 1955, 1966, Oct 1974, 1987, 2001, 2005, 2015, 2017, 2019) | 3(1923, 1924, 1951) | 13 |
| Economic crisis since the last election | No | 2(1950, 1983) | 10(1929, 1931, 1945, 1964, 1970, Feb 1974, 1979, 1997, 2010, 2024) | 12 |
| Yes | 3(1922, 1959, 1992) | 0 | 3 | |
| Total | 15 | 13 | 28 |
Even though there have been post-crisis political changes of PM since 2019, the 2024 election is not listed in the bottom row because there was a recession (in 2023) after Sunak took office.
Continue reading How energy and economic crises cost the Conservatives the 2024 general election
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