United Kingdom general election, 1950
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The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first ever to be held after a full term of
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
government. The election was held on Thursday 23 February 1950, and was the first held following the abolition of
plural voting Plural voting is the practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. It is not to be confused with a plurality voting system which does not necessarily involve plural voting. Weighted voting is a generalisation of p ...
and
university constituencies A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents the members of one or more universities rather than residents of a geographical area. These may or may not involve plural voting, in which voters a ...
. The government's
1945 1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which Nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been used in combat. Events Below, ...
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 1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which Nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been used in combat. Events Below, ...
. 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 #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
coverage of the election, which he would later do again for the
1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...
, 1955,
1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
and the 1964 general elections. On this occasion, Dimbleby was joined in the BBC Lime Grove Studios by R. B. McCallum, 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 The following elections occurred in the year 1945. Africa * 1945 South-West African legislative election Asia * 1945 Indian general election Australia * 1945 Fremantle by-election Europe * 1945 Albanian parliamentary election * 1945 Bulgarian ...
included the abolition of
plural voting Plural voting is the practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. It is not to be confused with a plurality voting system which does not necessarily involve plural voting. Weighted voting is a generalisation of p ...
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, including ...
, and a major reorganisation of constituencies by the
House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 The House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that provided for the periodic review of the number and boundaries of parliamentary constituencies. The Act amended the rules for the dist ...
. 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 A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...
and nationalisation 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 A mixed economy is variously defined as an economic system blending elements of a market economy with elements of a planned economy, markets with state interventionism, or private enterprise with public enterprise. Common to all mixed economie ...
. 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. One of the major election issues was the
rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...
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 The home counties are the counties of England that surround London. The counties are not precisely defined but Buckinghamshire and Surrey are usually included in definitions and Berkshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent are also often included ...
,
Essex Essex () is a 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 River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
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, Attlee was met with “catcalls” and chants of “vermin” while Hugh Gaitskell 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 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...
. 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 Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gove ...
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 Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
(
Bexley Bexley is an area of south-eastern Greater London, England and part of the London Borough of Bexley. It is sometimes known as Bexley Village or Old Bexley to differentiate the area from the wider borough. It is located east-southeast of Ch ...
),
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 John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1 ...
(Wolverhampton South West),
Reginald Maudling Reginald Maudling (7 March 1917 – 14 February 1979) was a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1962 to 1964 and as Home Secretary from 1970 to 1972. From 1955 until the late 1960s, he was spoken of as a prospecti ...
( 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 Bevanism was a movement on the left wing of the Labour Party in the late 1950s led by Aneurin Bevan which also included Richard Crossman, Michael Foot and Barbara Castle. Bevanism was opposed by the Gaitskellites, moderate social democrats w ...
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 repudi ...
factions after Hugh Gaitskell blamed Aneurin Bevan for their party's disappointing performance, leading to a growing rift between the two.


Votes summary


Seats summary


See also

* List of MPs elected in the 1950 United Kingdom general election *
1950 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland The 1950 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 23 February as part of the wider general election. The Representation of the People Act 1948 reorganised constituencies: all MPs were now elected single-seat constituen ...


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 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 crashes in a snowstorm. All 19 ...
General election Austerity in the United Kingdom (1939–1954) General election Electoral history of Winston Churchill Clement Attlee