There’s much joy to be had from watching reruns of old general elections

It is 46 years since Harold Wilson won a tiny majority at the second attempt that year, and it’s rather enjoyable to rewatch the footage, writes John Rentoul

Margaret Beckett is the only MP elected in October 1974 who is still in the House of Commons (Getty)

I have been watching old election results again. On the 46th anniversary of the general election of October 1974, the BBC reran the entire results night programme. I have only just caught up with it on iPlayer, and do recommend it – hurry, you have eight days left. 

The clothes and accents are immense. Esther Rantzen reported from the Guildford count. Frank Allaun, the Labour left-winger, said he looked forward to a referendum on the Common Market. “I believe that last item was Labour’s trump card in this election,” he told Robin Day. 

Then there is the result from Lincoln, where Margaret Jackson, now Margaret Beckett, and then looking very like Princess Anne, won the seat back for Labour. She defeated Dick Taverne, a prototype Social Democrat who had held the seat as Democratic Labour in the previous election, nine months earlier, in February 1974. 

Beckett is the only MP elected in October 1974 who is still in the House of Commons, holding the record for longest service of any woman MP, according to Mr Memory. 

I was discussing the programme with Robert Hayward, now Lord Hayward, recently. He was the Conservative candidate in Carmarthen that day, a seat fiercely contested between Labour and Plaid Cymru. He recounted the story of one of the best examples of police crowd control at the count. 

Labour had beaten Plaid by three votes at the previous election. Turnout had increased this time, against the national trend. “The count was in central Carmarthen in a square from which only two very narrow side streets led off,” said Lord Hayward. 

“The square was more than full for a long while before the declaration, with hundreds of both Welsh Nat and Labour supporters. Given how packed the crowds were, things could have easily become ugly. The two sides did not like each other. There was an intense and palpable rivalry.

“It being Wales, for the final hour a police officer led the crowd in community singing from an upper platform. He covered the full range of Welsh anthems. Throughout, the singing was audible within the hall and was truly superb. As a result any potential animosity was totally diffused.”

Some of the singing features briefly on the programme, a while before the declaration of the result: Gwynfor Evans, the Plaid candidate, gained the seat from Labour’s Gwynoro Jones by a margin of 3,640 – Hayward came fourth behind the Liberal.

Yours,

John Rentoul

Chief political commentator