1951 United Kingdom general election

The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held twenty months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats. The Labour government called a snap election for Thursday 25 October 1951 in the hope of increasing its parliamentary majority.

1951 United Kingdom general election

← 1950 25 October 1951 1955 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All 625 seats in the House of Commons 313 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	82.6% (1.3 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Winston Churchill Clement Attlee Clement Davies Party Conservative Labour Liberal Leader since 9 October 1940 25 October 1935 2 August 1945 Leader's seat Woodford Walthamstow West Montgomeryshire Last election 298 seats, 43.4% 315 seats, 46.1% 9 seats, 9.1% Seats won 321[a] 295 6 Seat change 23 20 3 Popular vote 13,717,851 13,948,385 730,546 Percentage 48.0% 48.8% 2.5% Swing 4.6% 2.7% 6.6%
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Composition of the House of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Clement Attlee Labour Prime Minister after election Winston Churchill Conservative

This election is remarkable for the fact that despite the Labour Party winning the popular vote (48.8%) and achieving the highest-ever total vote (13,948,385) at the time, the Conservative Party won a majority of 17 seats. This unusual phenomenon can be attributed to the collapse of the Liberal vote, which enabled the Conservatives to win seats by default.^[1]

The Labour Party has never gone on to equal or surpass the voteshare or the total vote that it acquired in this election.^[2] The Conservatives, however, would break the record of the highest votes in 1992 and again in 2019. It would also exceed the 48.8% voteshare won by the Labour Party, in the 1955 and 1959 elections winning over 49% in each case.

The election marked the return of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister and the beginning of Labour's 13-year spell in opposition. It was the third and final general election to be held during the reign of King George VI, as he died the following year on 6 February and was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II. It was the last election in which the Conservatives did better in Scotland than in England.

The 1951 election was the second one to be covered on BBC Television. On election night, the results were televised from the BBC Alexandra Palace studio in London. Graham Hutton, David Butler and H. G. Nicholas headed the election night coverage from 10.15pm to 4.00am on the television service. On the following day, television coverage started at 10.00am and continued throughout the day until 5.00pm.^[3]

Background

King George VI feared since that the government had such a slim majority, and he was to leave the country to go on his planned Commonwealth tour in early 1952, there was a possibility of a change of government in his absence. Clement Attlee decided to call the election to assuage that concern.^[4] (In the event, the King became too ill to travel and delegated the tour to his daughter Princess Elizabeth shortly before his death in February 1952.) Parliament was dissolved on 5 October 1951.^[5]

The Labour government, which had implemented most of its manifesto from the 1945 election, was beginning to lose cabinet ministers, such as Ernest Bevin (death) and Stafford Cripps (health issues). The Conservative Party, however, had more MPs since the 1950 general election.

Campaign

The Labour Party entered the election by being weakened by the emerging schism between Gaitskellites, on the right of the party, and the Bevanites, on its left.^[6] The party's manifesto stated that the party "proud of its record, sure in its policies—confidently asks the electors to renew its mandate". It identified four key tasks facing the United Kingdom that it would tackle: the need to work for peace, the need to work to "maintain full employment and to increase production", the need to reduce cost of living and the need to "build a just society". The manifesto argued that only a Labour government could achieve those tasks.^[7] It also contrasted the Britain of 1951 with that of the interwar years in which there had been largely Conservative-led governments by noting that the interwar period had seen "mass-unemployment; mass fear; mass misery".^[8] It did not promise more nationalisations, unlike in the previous year's election, and instead focused on offering more council housing and a pledge to "associate the workers more closely with the administration of public industries and services". However, it remained opposed to full workers' control of industries.^[6]

While Labour began to have some policy divisions during the election campaign, the Conservatives ran an efficient campaign, which was well-funded and orchestrated. Their manifesto, Britain Strong and Free, stressed that safeguarding "our traditional way of life" was integral to the Conservative purpose. Significantly, they did not propose to dismantle the British welfare state or the National Health Service which the Labour government had established.^[9] The manifesto, however, promised to "stop all further nationalisation" and to repeal the Steel Act, which had been introduced by the Labour government and was being implemented during the election season. The Conservatives also attacked Labour for ending wartime rationing and price controls too slowly and for the rise of industrial conflicts after the end of the wartime wage freeze and the Defence Regulations bans on strike actions.^[6][10]

As for the Liberal Party, its poor election result in 1950 only worsened this time. Unable to get the same insurance against losses of deposits of the previous year, it fielded only 109 candidates, as opposed to 478 in 1950, and thus posted the worst general election result in the party's history by getting just 2.5% of the vote and winning only six seats. The popular vote of the Liberals and later the Liberal Democrats has not fallen so low since, but their lowest number of six seats would be matched in several future elections.^[11] The Liberal Party's growing irrelevance weakened the Labour Party since two thirds of potential Liberal voters supported the Conservatives.^[6]

Four candidates were returned unopposed, all of them Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland. It is the most recent general election in which any candidates have been returned unopposed although there have been later unopposed by-elections.^[12]

The subsequent Labour defeat was significant for several reasons. The party polled almost a quarter-million votes more than the Conservative Party and its National Liberal Party ally combined; won the most votes that Labour has ever won (as of 2019); and won the most votes of any political party in any election in British political history, a number that would not be surpassed until the Conservative Party's victory in 1992.

However, the Conservative Party formed the next government with a majority of 17 seats. It performed much better with male working-class voters than in the elections of 1945 or 1950 and tipped the vote away from Labour in Lancashire, the Home Counties and East Anglia.^[6] Under the first-past-the-post electoral system, many Labour votes were "wasted" because they were included in large majorities for MPs in safe seats.

Results

1951 United Kingdom general election

			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Stood	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Labour	Clement Attlee	617	295	2	22	−20	47.2	48.8	13,948,883	+2.7
	Conservative	Winston Churchill	617	321	23	1	+22	51.4	48.0	13,717,850	+4.6
	Liberal	Clement Davies	109	6	1	4	−3	1.0	2.6	730,546	−6.5
	Ind. Nationalist	N/A	3	2	0	0	0	0.3	0.3	92,787	N/A
	Irish Labour	William Norton	1	1	1	0	+1	0.2	0.1	33,174	−0.1
	Communist	Harry Pollitt	10	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	21,640	−0.2
	Independent	N/A	6	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	19,791	N/A
	Plaid Cymru	Gwynfor Evans	4	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	10,920	−0.1
	SNP	Robert McIntyre	2	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	7,299	0.0
	Ind. Conservative	N/A	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	5,904	N/A
	Ind. Labour Party	Fred Barton	3	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	4,057	0.0
	British Empire	P. J. Ridout	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	1,643	N/A
	Anti-Partition	James McSparran	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	1,340	0.0
	United Socialist	Guy Aldred	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	411	0.0

Total votes cast: 28,596,594.^[b]

Government's new majority	17
Total votes cast	28,596,594
Turnout	82.6%

Votes summary

Popular vote Labour   48.78% Conservative   47.97% Liberal   2.55% Others   0.70%

Headline swing: 1.13% to Conservative.

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats Conservative   51.36% Labour   47.20% Liberal   0.96% Others   0.48%

Transfers of seats

All comparisons are with the 1950 election.^[c]

From		To		No.	Seats
	Labour		Labour (HOLD)	273
			Liberal	1	Bolton West
			Conservative	21	Barry, Battersea South, Bedfordshire South, Berwick and East Lothian, Bolton East, Buckingham, Conway, Darlington, Doncaster, Dulwich, King's Lynn, Manchester Blackley, Middlesbrough West, Norfolk South West, Oldham East, Plymouth Sutton, Reading North, Rochdale, Rutherglen, Wycombe, Yarmouth
	Nationalist		Nationalist (HOLD)	1	Fermanagh and South Tyrone
			Ind. Nationalist	1	Mid Ulster
	Liberal		Labour	2	Anglesey, Meirioneth
			Liberal (HOLD)	5	Cardiganshire, Carmarthen, Huddersfield West, Montgomery, Orkney and Shetland
			Conservative	2	Eye, Roxburgh and Selkirk
	National Liberal		National Liberal (HOLD)	16	Angus North and Mearns, Angus South, Bedfordshire South, Bradford North, Denbigh, Dumfriesshire, Fife East, Harwich, Holland with Boston, Huntingdonshire, Luton, Norfolk Central, Renfrewshire West, Ross and Cromarty, St Ives, Torrington
	Conservative		National Liberal	1	Newcastle upon Tyne North
			Conservative (HOLD)	many
	Speaker			1	Hexham
	UUP		Irish Labour	1	Belfast West
			UUP	9	North Antrim, South Antrim, Armagh, Belfast East, Belfast North, Belfast South, Down North, Down South, Londonderry

See also

• List of MPs elected in the 1951 United Kingdom general election
• 1951 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
• 1951 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours

Notes

1. The seat and vote count figures for the Conservatives given here include the Speaker of the House of Commons.
2. All parties shown. Conservative result includes the Ulster Unionists.
3. No seats changed hands during the 1950–51 Parliament.

References

1. Jenkin, Thomas P. (1952). "The British General Election of 1951". The Western Political Quarterly. 5 (1): 51–65. doi:10.2307/442551. ISSN 0043-4078.
2. Linton, Martin. "Labour can still win". Fabian Tract (532).
3. "The General Election". Radio Times (1458): 50. 19 October 1951.
4. Judd 2012, p. 238: Judd writes that Attlee confirmed in his own autobiography the King's anxiety.
5. "Parliamentary Election Timetables" (PDF) (3rd ed.). House of Commons Library. 25 March 1997. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
6. Thorpe, Andrew (1997). A History of the British Labour Party. London: Macmillan Education UK. p. 133. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0. ISBN 978-0-333-56081-5.
7. The Times House of Commons 1951, London: The Times Office, 1951, p. 228
8. The Times House of Commons 1951, London: The Times Office, 1951, p. 229
9. Kynaston 2009, p. 32.
10. The Times House of Commons 1951, London: The Times Office, 1951, p. 234
11. 1951: Churchill back in power at last, BBC News, 5 April 2005, retrieved 5 October 2013
12. "General Election Results 1885–1979". election.demon.co.uk. Archived from the original on 23 February 2008. Retrieved 26 November 2020 – via Wayback Machine.

Sources

• Butler, David E. (1952), The British General Election of 1951, London: Macmillan, The standard study
• Craig, F.W.S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
• Judd, Dennis (2012), George VI, I.B. Tauris (paperback), ISBN 978-1-78076-071-1
• Kynaston, David (2009), Family Britain 1951–7, London: Bloomsbury, ISBN 9780747583851

External links

• United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979
• Churchill & the 1951 General Election - UK Parliament Living Heritage

Manifestos

• Conservative Party: 1951, 1951 Conservative Party manifesto
• Labour Party Election Manifesto, 1951 Labour Party manifesto
• The Nation's Task, 1951 Liberal Party manifesto