18 named examples with their significance, drawn from the Panther database. Read them, then test yourself.
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The examples
2024 General Election: Labour Landslide, Reform Surge and Blue Wall Collapse(2024)(tap to reveal)- Labour 412 seats / 33.7% vote (174-seat majority - the largest since 1997 on the lowest winning vote share in modern UK history). Conservatives 121 / 23.7% - their worst result since 1906. Reform UK 14.3% / 5 seats; Lib Dems 12.2% / 72 seats; Greens 4 seats (best ever). Turnout 59.7% (lowest since 2001). Sunak called the election early in May 2024 and left D-Day commemorations early; Gaza-related independents won several Labour-held seats.
Bernie Ecclestone Donation 1997: Formula One Tobacco Advertising Exemption(2000)(tap to reveal)- Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone donated £1 million to the Labour Party before the 1997 general election. Shortly after Labour took power, the government exempted Formula One from the EU ban on tobacco advertising at sports events (other sports were subject to the ban). When the link became public, Labour returned the donation and Tony Blair appeared on television to say 'I am a pretty straight kind of a guy'. Ecclestone had met with Blair at Downing Street before the exemption decision. The episode triggered calls for greater regulation of party donations and was a catalyst for the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA).
Blair's 1997 Landslide: 418 Seats, 10.3% Swing and the Sun's Endorsement Switch(1997)(tap to reveal)- On 1 May 1997 Labour won 418 seats (a 145-seat gain) on 43.2% of the vote, producing a 179-seat majority - the largest since 1935 - on a 10.3% national swing, the biggest postwar swing. The Conservatives fell to 165 seats on 30.7%, their worst result since 1906 until 2024 broke it. Lib Dems won 46 seats on 16.8%. Turnout was 71.4%. The Sun switched endorsement from Conservative to Labour ten days before polling day with the headline 'The Sun Backs Blair'. Combined Lab+Con vote share was 73.9% - high two-party concentration.
Christopher Harborne and Reform UK Funding: The Largest Individual Donor to the Insurgent Right(2019)(tap to reveal)- Christopher Harborne is a British businessman based in Thailand (where he holds dual citizenship as Chakrit Sakunkrit) and owns the aviation-fuel firm AML Global Limited and a stake in software / fintech ventures. He is the largest individual donor to the right-of-centre pro-Brexit party tradition. According to Electoral Commission records he gave the Brexit Party more than 6 million pounds in 2019 (the largest single donation to any UK party that year) and has continued to fund Reform UK through 2023 to 2025 with further six- and seven-figure donations. Media analyses estimate his combined political donations since 2017 at more than 15 million pounds, almost all to UKIP / Brexit Party / Reform UK. Donations are routed through his UK-registered companies (such as AML Global) which makes them permissible under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 even though he himself is non-resident.
DUP Confidence and Supply Agreement 2017-19: Minor Party Use under FPTP(2017)(tap to reveal)- Conservatives won 317 seats in 2017, needing 326 for a majority. DUP had 10 MPs. Agreement involved £1bn extra for Northern Ireland. Agreement collapsed in 2019 when Johnson gained majority. DUP later strongly opposed the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Dan Poulter Conservative-to-Labour Defection April 2024(2024)(tap to reveal)- In April 2024, Conservative MP Dan Poulter - who also works part-time as a mental health NHS doctor - defected to Labour, citing his firsthand experience of an overstretched NHS that he could no longer reconcile with Conservative Party policy. He stated the Conservative government had 'failed the NHS'. Poulter had been a junior health minister under Cameron. His defection came as the Conservatives trailed Labour by 20+ points in polls. He is one of several Tory MPs to defect in the 2024-25 Parliament (Lee Anderson defected to Reform UK in February 2024).
Elon Musk and Reform UK: Foreign Tech Billionaire Donor Interest (2024-25)(2024-25)(tap to reveal)- Reports in late 2024 suggested Elon Musk might donate up to 100 million dollars to Reform UK, which would have been the largest political donation in UK history. The donation never materialised and Musk broke publicly with Farage in January 2025.
Green Party 2024 Breakthrough: Four MPs Elected Under FPTP(2024)(tap to reveal)- The Greens won four seats at the 2024 general election, quadrupling their Commons representation from one to four, on a vote share of 6.7 percent.
Kemi Badenoch Conservative Leadership (November 2024 onwards)(2024-present)(tap to reveal)- Kemi Badenoch was elected Conservative leader in November 2024, defeating Robert Jenrick. She is the first Black woman to lead a major UK party.
Labour Expulsions and Readmissions 2024: Corbyn, Abbott and Shaheen(2023-24)(tap to reveal)- In the months before the 2024 election, Labour permanently blocked Jeremy Corbyn, reluctantly readmitted Diane Abbott, and deselected Faiza Shaheen, signalling a sharp move away from the Corbynite left.
Labour Party Membership Decline: Over 1 Million (1950s) to 190,000 (2015)(2015)(tap to reveal)- Labour Party membership fell from over 1 million in the 1950s to around 190,000 by 2015, before surging to around 550,000 following Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader in 2015.
Lee Anderson Conservative-to-Reform UK Defection February 2024(2024)(tap to reveal)- In February 2024, Conservative MP Lee Anderson (former deputy party chairman) defected to Reform UK after party whip was removed for refusing to apologise for comments about London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Islamists. Anderson had been one of the most prominent Conservative voices on culture and immigration. His defection signalled that Reform UK - under Nigel Farage from June 2024 - was capable of attracting sitting Conservative MPs, not just voters. Reform went on to win 14.3% of the vote and 5 seats in the 2024 general election, with Anderson retaining his seat as a Reform MP.
LibDem Tuition Fees U-turn 2010: Coalition Pledge Abandonment(2015)(tap to reveal)- In the 2010 general election, the Liberal Democrats signed a prominent public pledge (the NUS pledge) to vote against any increase in tuition fees and to oppose fee increases. As junior coalition partners in the Cameron-Clegg coalition, they supported Conservative policy to raise tuition fees from £3,375 to £9,000 per year. Deputy PM Nick Clegg apologised publicly but the party suffered severe electoral consequences: in the 2015 general election the LibDems were reduced from 57 seats to 8. Party membership fell from 65,000 to around 44,000. The episode became shorthand for coalition compromise and broken promises.
Michael Hintze and Conservative Party Funding(2020)(tap to reveal)- ARCHIVED on 2026-05-20: replaced in the Twenty Key Examples Workshop by E365 (Nick Candy / Reform UK funding). Hintze content remains in the database.
Hintze donated over £4.7m to the Conservative Party over many years. CQS is a major investment management firm. Conservative Party receives proportionally more large individual donations than other parties. PPERA 2000 requires donations over £7,500 to be declared.
Nick Candy and Reform UK Funding (Dec 2024): The Property Tycoon Bankrolling the Insurgent Right(2024)(tap to reveal)- ARCHIVED on 2026-05-20: replaced in the Twenty-Five Key Examples Workshop by E369 (Christopher Harborne), whose cumulative donations to UKIP / Brexit Party / Reform UK make him the larger and longer-standing single donor. Candy content preserved below.
Property developer Nick Candy (Candy & Candy, One Hyde Park) joined Reform UK as Treasurer in December 2024. He had previously donated 100,000 pounds to UKIP in 2014. Candy pledged personal donations and announced a target of raising 25 million pounds for Reform by the next general election. Net worth roughly 1 billion pounds. His Reform appointment came as Reform polled level with or ahead of the Conservatives in late-2024 and early-2025 polling.
PPERA 2000 Election Spending Limits (2000)(2000)(tap to reveal)- The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 established the Electoral Commission and imposed spending caps for general elections - approximately £30,000 per constituency under contemporary uplifts.
Party Facebook Advertising Spend 2019 General Election: Labour £1.4m, Tories £900k(2019)(tap to reveal)- Data from WhoTargetsMe (a browser extension tracking political ads) in the 2019 general election showed Labour spent over £1.4 million on Facebook advertising, while both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats spent approximately £900,000 each. Targeted social media advertising allows parties to show different messages to different voter profiles based on age, location, and interests - techniques impossible with traditional broadcast advertising. The Conservatives' 2019 Facebook ads were widely criticised for misleading content; a Channel 4 analysis found 88% of Conservative Facebook ads contained misleading statistics.
SNP Dominance in Scotland and the Nationalist Challenge (2015-present)(2015-present)(tap to reveal)- SNP dominance since 2015: won 56/59 Scottish seats in 2015 GE. Consistently holds majority in Scottish Parliament under AMS. Forms Scottish Government. Indyref 2014: 55% No. SNP pursues independence as primary goal. Nicola Sturgeon led SNP 2014-23; Humza Yousaf 2023-24; John Swinney from 2024.