What is a landslide victory in the general election?

Labour are set to win the general election 2024 with a 'landslide' majority, according to the exit poll. The prediction shows that Sir Keir Starmer's party will win 410 seats in Parliament - 170 more than the Conservatives.

But what is meant by the term landslide? A landslide victory is when one candidate or political party in an election wins by an overwhelming margin.

There is no exact number of how big that win is and varies by the type of electoral system. Even within an electoral system, there is no consensus on what sized margin makes for a landslide victory.

READ MORE: General election 2024 results and updates across Greater Manchester and UK - live updates

The term became popular in the 1800s to describe a victory in which the opposition is "buried".

Previous examples of landslide election victories in the UK include Tony Blair and his Labour win in 1997, when the party won a majority of 179 seats. Blair's victory four years later in 2001 is also considered a landslide, when he won an overall majority of 167.

Boris Johnson's 2019 Conservative Party victory was also considered a landslide after the Tories won a majority of 80 seats.

In order to form a majority government in the House of Commons a party needs to have 50 per cent of seats plus one more as a bare minimum - so in the case of this election that number would be 326.

The 2024 general election took place using new constituency boundaries following a review by the boundary commissions of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It means that had of the election a number of new constituencies were created, boundaries were changed, and 211 out of the 650 seats were renamed.

A general election typically takes place every four to five years with the last in December 2019. This year's election was called by Rishi Sunak on May 22.