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All 71 Scottish seats to the House of Commons | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Results of the 1966 election in Scotland Conservative/Unionist Labour Liberal |
A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday, 31 March 1966, and all 71 seats in Scotland were contested.[1] 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.
The election was first in which the Scottish Conservatives stood for election as a integral part of the Conservative Party, with the former Unionist Party (which had been aligned with, but separate from, the Conservatives), having merged into the Tories in April 1965.[2][3] Both Labour and Liberal parties gained seats from the newly merged Conservatives at the election.