1992 United Kingdom general election in the context of "Council Tax"

The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing Conservative Party led by Prime Minister Theresa May remained the largest single party in the House of Commons but lost its small overall majority, resulting in the formation of a Conservative minority government with a confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.

The Conservative Party, which had governed as a senior coalition partner from 2010 and as a single-party majority government from 2015, was led by May as Prime Minister. It was defending a working majority of 17 seats against the opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn. It was the first general election to be contested by either May or Corbyn as party leader; May had succeeded David Cameron following his resignation as prime minister the previous summer, while Corbyn had succeeded Ed Miliband after he resigned following Labour's failure to win the general election two years earlier.

Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Chingford and Woodford Green, formerly Chingford, since 1992.

The son of W. G. G. Duncan Smith, a Royal Air Force flying-ace, Duncan Smith was born in Edinburgh and raised in Solihull. After education at the HMS Conway training school and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he served in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981, seeing tours in Northern Ireland and in Rhodesia. He joined the Conservative Party in 1981. After unsuccessfully contesting Bradford West in 1987, he was elected to Parliament at the 1992 general election. He was a backbencher during the premiership of John Major (in office from 1990 to 1997). In the shadow cabinet of William Hague, Duncan Smith served as Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security between 1997 and 1998, and as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence from 1998 to 2001.

Tessa Jane Helen Douglas Jowell, Baroness Jowell, DBE, PC (née Palmer; 17 September 1947 – 12 May 2018) was a British Labour Party politician and life peer who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dulwich and West Norwood, previously Dulwich, from 1992 to 2015.

Jowell held a number of major government ministerial positions, as well as opposition appointments, during this period. She served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2001 to 2007 and Minister for the Cabinet Office from 2009 to 2010. A member of both the Blair and Brown Cabinets, she was also Minister for the Olympics (2005–10) and Shadow Minister for the Olympics and Shadow Minister for London until September 2012, resigning after the London Olympic Games.

The 1992 Labour Party leadership election followed the Labour Party's failure to win the 1992 general election and the subsequent resignation of party leader Neil Kinnock.

There were only two candidates in the election, with John Smith always the clear favourite to win. The ballot took place on 18 July 1992 at the Labour Party conference. Affiliated organisations had 40% of the vote, while Constituency Labour Parties and the Parliamentary Labour Party had 30% each in the electoral college. Gordon Brown and Robin Cook were both seen as potential candidates, but did not stand.

The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 25 October 1951, just twenty months after the previous general election in 1950; the Labour government called the election in hopes of increasing its parliamentary majority. However, this backfired, as even though Labour won the most votes, it was the Conservatives who won a majority, with the collapse of the Liberal vote allowing the Conservatives to gain seats by default.

Up to that point, the Labour Party achieved the most votes cast for a party; however, this would be surpassed several times, with the Conservatives breaking the record in 1992 and 2019. (13,948,385 is also the highest number of votes Labour ever won in a general election.) The Conservatives would also exceed the popular vote percentage (48.8%) achieved by Labour, in 1955 and 1959, winning over 49% in both cases. Turnout in this election declined slightly.

Sir Bernard Christison Jenkin (born 9 April 1959) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Harwich and North Essex, previously Colchester North then North Essex, since 1992. He also served as chair of the Liaison Committee.

Jenkin was elected chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee in May 2010. He is a longstanding critic of the European Union, believing that EU membership undermined the United Kingdom's national sovereignty, and he was one of the Maastricht Rebels during the premiership of John Major. In the 2016 EU referendum he supported Brexit and from 2017 he was one of the most vocal supporters of the Eurosceptic pressure group Leave Means Leave.

Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 1913 – 3 March 2010) was a British politician who was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on Tribune and the Evening Standard. He co-wrote the 1940 polemic against appeasement of Adolf Hitler, Guilty Men, under a pseudonym.

Foot was a Member of Parliament (MP) for some 42 years, from 1945 to 1955 and 1960 to 1992. A passionate orator, and associated with the left wing of the Labour Party for most of his career, Foot was an ardent supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and of British withdrawal from the European Economic Community (EEC). He was appointed to Harold Wilson's Cabinet as Employment Secretary in 1974, and he later was Leader of the House of Commons from 1976 to 1979 under James Callaghan. He was also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under Callaghan from 1976 to 1980.