The first Liberal gain from Conservative was Newcastle-upon-Tyne North. The first seat Labour gained from the Tories was Walsall South. There were some Liberal gains from Conservative, a fewer number of Labour gains from Conservative, and few other seats changed hands. When all the constituencies had declared their results by the late afternoon of Friday 7 October, the number of seats won by each party in the House of Commons were as follows (1979 general election):
Labour: 243 (228)
Conservative: 211 (269)
Liberal: 151 (112)
SNP: 14 (12)
Progressive: 8 (3)
Ulster Unionist: 5 (9)
NILP: 4 (5)
Plaid Cymru: 4 (2)
Speaker: 1 (1)
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Total: 641 (641)
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Liberal gains from Conservative were: Brentwood and Ongar, Bridgwater, Brigg and Scunthorpe, Bristol West, Conwy, Croydon Central, Darlington, Darwen, Eastbourne, Edinburgh Pentlands, Edinburgh South, Farnham, Gloucestershire South, Gulidford, Halesowen and Stourbridge, Holderness, Horsham and Crawley, Ipswich, Kidderminster, Leeds North West, Margate, Middleton and Prestwich, Newcastle-upon-Tyne North, Norfolk North, Oswestry, Oxford, Plymouth Sutton, Poole, Preston South, Reading North, St. Ives, Shoreham, Southampton Test, Southend East, Stockport North, Stroud, Tonbridge and Malling, Upmimster, Welwyn Garden City, Westbury, Woking, Wokingham, Worcestershire South. Total: 43.
Labour gained the following fifteen seats from Conservative: Aberdeen South, Bebington and Ellesmere Port, Birmingham Selly Oak, Derbyshire South West,
Ealing North, Hemel Hempstead, Leicester East, Leicester South, Lewisham West, Newark, Norwich South, Paddington, Preston North, Walsall South, York.
Labour also gained Basildon , and Dewsbury from Liberal. Conservatives gained Aldridge-Brownhills from Liberal, while Hornchurch was a Liberal gain from Labour.
Plaid Cymru took Anglesey from Labour and Carmathen from Liberal. SNP gains were Galloway from Conservative, and Argyll from Liberal. In Northern Ireland, Progressives gained Belfast North from NILP, and Armagh, Down East, Fermanagh, and Londonderry South from Ulster Unionist.
The percentage votes for each party were as follows:
Conservative: 33.6 (37.2)
Liberal: 30.2 (28.7)
Labour: 29.4 (30.3)
SNP: 3.1 (1,9)
Plaid Cymru: 0.5 (0.5)
Others: 3.2 (1.4).
The Northern Ireland sister parties of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties are included in the percentage votes for those parties. The turnout was 79.3% (76.6%).
The general election result was good for Labour. Barbara Castle's gamble in calling an early election had paid off, and the highest number of Labour MPs were elected. The Liberals recovered somewhat after losing seats and votes in the previous three general election. The result was worse for the Tories than they expected. They hoped that they would still be the largest party in the House of Commons.