The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first ever to be held after a full term of
Labour government. The election was held on Thursday 23 February 1950, and was the first held following the abolition of
plural voting and
university constituencies. The government's
1945 lead over the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
shrank dramatically, and Labour was returned to power but with an overall majority reduced from 146 to just 5. There was a 2.8% national swing towards the Conservatives, who gained 90 seats. Labour called another
general election in 1951, which the Conservative Party won.
Turnout increased to 83.9%, the highest turnout in a UK general election under universal suffrage, and representing an increase of more than 11% in comparison to
1945.
It was also the first general election to be covered on television, although the footage was not recorded.
Richard Dimbleby
Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster, who became the BBC's first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator.
As host of the long-running current affairs ...
hosted the
BBC coverage of the election, which he would later do again for the
1951,
1955
Events January
* January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
* January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
* January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijiangs ...
,
1959 and the
1964 general elections. On this occasion, Dimbleby was joined in the BBC
Lime Grove Studios
Lime Grove Studios was a film, and later television, studio complex in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England.
The complex was built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915. It was situated in Lime Grove, a residential street in Shepherd's Bush, a ...
by
R. B. McCallum
Ronald Buchanan McCallum (28 August 1898 in Paisley, Renfrewshire – 18 May 1973 in Letcombe Regis, Berkshire) was a British historian. He was a fellow (and later Master) of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he taught modern history and politics ...
, Fellow of
Pembroke College, Oxford, and author of ''The British General Election of 1945'', and
David Butler, research student of
Nuffield College. The first election night programme ran from 10:45 pm until just after 1:00 am.
Background
Significant changes since the
1945 general election included the abolition of
plural voting by the
Representation of the People Act 1948
The Representation of the People Act 1948 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the law relating to parliamentary and local elections. It is noteworthy for abolishing plural voting for parliamentary elections, includin ...
, and a major reorganisation of constituencies by the
House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949. Eleven new English seats were created and six were abolished, and there were over 170 major alterations to constituencies across the country. Parliament was dissolved on 3 February 1950.
Campaign
The Conservatives, having recovered from their landslide election defeat in 1945, accepted most of the
welfare state and
nationalisation
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...
that had taken place under the
Attlee government, which included the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
and the
mixed economy. The Tory manifesto, "''This Is The Road''" accepted the new welfare state’s foundations but focused on the loss of freedoms and aspirations since 1945. Churchill claimed Attlee had not “levelled up” but had actually “levelled down”.
The campaign essentially focused on the possible future nationalisation of other sectors and industries, which was supported by the Labour Party, and opposed by the Conservatives. The
Liberals essentially viewed the struggle between the two parties on this issue as a
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The form ...
.
One of the major election issues was the
rationing still in effect on petrol, confectionery and meats over five years after the end of the war. The Conservative Party promised to phase out rationing while Labour campaigned for its continuation.
Analysis showed that Labour suffered huge losses of seats due to a “revolt of the suburbs”, with substantial swings against them among
Middle England
The phrase "Middle England" is a socio-political term which generally refers to middle class or lower-middle class people in England who hold traditional conservative or right-wing views.
Origins
The origins of the term "Middle England" are ...
voters in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, the
Home Counties,
Essex
Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...
and
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...
. The effects of the Labour government's austerity, and inflation had hit middle income voters hard. In particular, rationing of basic foods like bread and powdered egg were incredibly unpopular. While campaigning in
Leicester
Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands.
The city l ...
, Attlee was met with “catcalls” and chants of “vermin” while
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant ...
sensed there was “a collection of grievances among the lower middle class and middle class” against Labour.
The Liberal Party fielded 475 candidates, more than at any general election since
1929. Liberal Party leader
Clement Davies
Edward Clement Davies (19 February 1884 – 23 March 1962) was a Welsh politician and leader of the Liberal Party from 1945 to 1956.
Early life and education
Edward Clement Davies was born on 19 February 1884 in Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire ...
felt that the party had been at a disadvantage at the 1945 general election when they ran fewer candidates than needed to form a government. Davies arranged for the cost of running extra candidates to be offset by the party taking out insurance with
Lloyd's of London against more than fifty candidates
losing their deposits. In the event, the strategy only succeeded in causing a very marginal increase in the overall Liberal vote over the previous election (albeit it was still their best popular vote percentage since 1929); the number of votes-per-candidate declined sharply, resulting in them losing a further three seats from their already-disappointing 1945 showing. A total of 319 Liberal candidates lost their deposits, a record number until the
2015 general election, when candidates for the
Liberal Democrats lost 335 deposits at the
general election held in that year.
Results
Despite losing 78 seats, the Labour Party won an overall majority of 5 seats, down from 146 in the previous election, while their vote share slightly declined. The Conservatives saw a resurgence in their support, gaining an additional 90 seats and saw their vote share improve by more than 4%.
Prominent personalities entering Parliament in this election included
Edward Heath (
Bexley),
Jo Grimond
Joseph Grimond, Baron Grimond, (; 29 July 1913 – 24 October 1993), known as Jo Grimond, was a British politician, leader of the Liberal Party for eleven years from 1956 to 1967 and again briefly on an interim basis in 1976.
Grimond was a lo ...
(
Orkney and Shetland),
Enoch Powell (Wolverhampton South West),
Reginald Maudling (
Barnet) and
Iain Macleod (Enfield West).
Scottish politician
Willie Gallacher lost his
West Fife seat to Labour; he was the longest-serving Member of Parliament (from 1935 to 1950) and the last MP in Parliament for the
Communist Party of Great Britain.
The election began the fractionalization of the Labour Party into
Bevanite and
Gaitskellite
Gaitskellism was the ideology of a faction in the British Labour Party in the 1950s and early 1960s which opposed many of the economic policies of the trade unions, especially nationalisation and control of the economy.
Theoretically, it repudia ...
factions after
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant ...
blamed
Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin "Nye" Bevan PC (; 15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee's government in which he spearheaded the creation of the British National Heal ...
for their party's disappointing performance, leading to a growing rift between the two.
Votes summary
Seats summary
See also
*
*
1950 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
*
External links
United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979
Manifestos
1950 Conservative Party manifesto
1950 Labour Party manifesto
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110811195951/http://politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/lib50.htm ''No Easy Way: Britain's Problems and the Liberal Answers'' 1950 Liberal Party manifesto
{{British elections
1950
General election
Austerity in the United Kingdom (1939–1954)
General election
Electoral history of Winston Churchill
Clement Attlee