October 1974 UK election in 'The Celtic Fringe' by Grant Toway

In this general election, the Scottish Liberal Party fielded far more candidates than it had done in recent elections. There were now only three constituencies where the Liberal Party absented themselves: Argyll, Fife Central, and Glasgow Provan.

Was it any coincidence that Glasgow Central possessed the smallest turnout figure for the second successive election but which supplied the MP with the largest vote share? Probably not. The inference is that the election of the Labour MP, Thomas McMillan, was perceived as a foregone conclusion, and this could easily have prompted some would-be voters of the other parties to abstain in the belief that their vote would have been effectively obsolete.

Scotland had a knack of providing many close contests. In this election, no fewer than nine seats yielded a victory margin of less than one thousand votes, including Dunbartonshire East where 429 votes separated the first three candidates. Many other constituencies would also have been viewed as key marginals, and the fact that only a few thousand votes decided many of the seats suggests that they were hotly-contested.

Given the delicate balance between the Conservative and Labour parties at the two 1974 general elections, the campaign battleground of Scotland would have assumed perhaps even greater significance than in other times. Each and every constituency now played a massive role in determining not just who would win the national election but how strong the subsequent parliamentary majority would be.

Carmarthen was the only constituency to change hands during what must clearly have seemed like a rather futile election campaign in Wales.

Unlike north of the border, Wales continued to have many hugely one-sided constituency election contests where the MP, to coin a phrase, only had to turn up to win.

Of the four major political parties, Plaid Cymru came last in 24 of the 36 constituencies which suggests that the people of Wales had yet to warm to the cause of Welsh nationalism. Ironically, Plaid Cymru accumulated a vote share of 10.8% for each of the two general elections of 1974 which was less than in 1970 when they obtained 11.5%. However, they won two, then three seats in 1974, and none in 1970. This confirms the fact that a party can achieve seats by maximising its vote in a few target seats yet remain way off the pace in many other constituencies. This does explain Plaid Cymru's performances in Wales throughout the period in this book.