Times Guide to the House of Commons

The Times Guide to the House of Commons is a political reference guide book published by Times Newspapers giving comprehensive coverage of general elections in the United Kingdom.

Following most general elections since 1880, the book has been published. The contents have tended to vary from one publication to the next, but have usually included the following;

*a summary of general election results.

*lists of Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to the House of Commons and government ministers, including defeated and retiring MPs and ministers in the House of Lords.

*a history of the previous Parliament and the events leading up to the general election.

*reviews of the election campaign.

*a list of opinion polls held throughout the election campaign.

*election results by constituency, and a photograph and biographical details of every MP (and prior to 2001, biographies of unsuccessful candidates).

*a list of by-election results of the previous Parliament.

*a statistical breakdown of election results by countries, counties, cities, etc, and a comparison with the previous general election results.

*the full text of the manifestos of major political parties, and excerpts of manifestos for minor political parties.

*an index of all election candidates.

*a fold-up map of British constituencies illustrating the election results.

The most recent version of the book tends to be widely available for around a year after publication, although older editions have in some cases have become rare collectors' items. New editions of the book for general elections held in the 1920s which were never published at the time were published in the early 21st century.