Two Nations Go to the Polls
In late October to early November 1924, the U.K. and U.S. held elections only six days apart. The two countries' elections have never occurred that close together since.
Unlike in the U.S., U.K. elections don't occur with regularity. They usually take place every five years, though the ruling government can call one sooner.
That's what happened earlier this year. Parliament would have automatically dissolved in December, five years after the prior election in December 2019. But on May 22, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called an election for July 4. His own Conservative Party ("the Tories") lost their ruling majority to the Labour Party.
P.W. Wilson noted this difference forĀ New York Times Magazine in a 1924 article:
In their politics Americans are thus as punctual as astronomy, while the British are still the unaccountable creatures of impulse. [Prime Ministers] Lloyd George has a bad night or MacDonald cranked a Daimler and Parliament has to be dissolved. Indeed, having endured three freak elections in three years, there are some British who yearn for the calm repose of the United States when the destiny of the Republic hangs in the balance.
Three U.K. elections in three years did indeed occur in November 1922, December 1923, and October 1924. The next would occur some four and a half years later, though, in May 1929.
Wilson also noted the difference in political interest by U.K. versus U.S. citizens:
There is, possibly, a reason why the British get more excited than do Americans over their politics. Americans are usually on the stunt in every direction, which habit they call private enterprise. Whereas in Britain most things were settled some years ago, and there is nothing left to get excited about except politics and [movie star] Mary Pickford.
Although in the age of Trump, it seems unlikely that any country's citizens get more animated by politics than Americans these days.
Since 1924, the next-closest proximity between the two countries' elections was the U.K.'s October 15, 1964 election which occurred only 19 days before the U.S. presidential election on November 3. But in 1924, the two elections occurred only six days apart.
Two Nations Go to the Polls: Contrasts Afforded by the Spectacle of Britain Choosing a Parliament and the United States a President
Published: Sunday, October 26, 1924