1950 election United Kingdom general election, 1950 The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first general election ever after a full term of a Labour government. Despite polling over one and a half million votes more than the Conservatives, the election, held on 23 February 1950 resulted in Labour receiving a slim majority of just five...  • MPs MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1950 This is a complete list of Members of Parliament elected to the 39th Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1950 general election, held on 23 February 1950....

1951 election United Kingdom general election, 1951 The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held eighteen months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats...  • MPs MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1951 This is a complete list of Members of Parliament elected to the 40th Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1951 general election on 25 October 1951.Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included Anthony Barber, Lord Lambton and Ted Short....

1955 election • MPs MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1955 This is a list of Members of Parliament elected to the 41st Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1955 general election, held on 26 May 1955. A total of 630 MPs were elected.Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included William Whitelaw and Geoffrey Rippon....

1959 election United Kingdom general election, 1959 This United Kingdom general election was held on 8 October 1959. It marked a third successive victory for the ruling Conservative Party, led by Harold Macmillan...  • MPs MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1959 This is a list of members of Parliament elected to the 42nd Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1959 general election, held on 8 October 1959.Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included Margaret Thatcher, Nicholas Ridley, Jim Prior, Peter Tapsell, John Morris and Jeremy Thorpe...

The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election

United Kingdom general election, 1951

The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held eighteen months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats...

. It resulted in a substantially increased majority of 60 for the Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 government under new leader and prime minister Sir Anthony Eden

Anthony Eden

Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...

 against Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

, now in their 20th year of leadership by Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

. Boundary changes however make a direct comparison with 1951 impossible.

This election has been described by many since as one of the "dullest" post war elections, due to there being little change in the country, with Labour steadily losing ground due to infighting. This was due to Nye Bevan, who had initiated a split in the party between the left (Bevanites) and the right (Gaitskellites). This resulted in an unclear election message from the Labour party. It would also be the 5th and last election fought by Labour leader Clement Attlee, who by this time was 72. Eden had only just became leader of the Conservative party just a few weeks before the election, after the retirement of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

. Despite this however Eden had for sometime been considered the natural heir apparent to the Conservative leadership. For the first time Television took a prominent role in the campaign. The Conservatives were hoping to take advantage of the end of food rationing and the good mood created by the recent coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Eden himself was telegenic, although not a great public speaker, and gradual economic growth benefited the party greatly.

This was the earliest general election

General election

In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 of which television coverage survives (the 1950 and 1951 election nights were not recorded). Only three hours of the coverage presented by Richard Dimbleby

Richard Dimbleby

Richard Dimbleby CBE was an English journalist and broadcaster widely acknowledged as one of the greatest figures in British broadcasting history.-Early life:...

 was kept and this was rebroadcast on BBC Parliament

BBC Parliament

BBC Parliament is a British television channel from the BBC. Its remit is to make accessible to all the work of the parliamentary and legislative bodies of the United Kingdom and the European Parliament...

 on the fiftieth anniversary of the date.

On election day, the Daily Mirror had printed the front page headline "Don't Let The Tories Cheat Our Children", urging its readers to elect Labour on the basis that it had "built a better Britain for us all".

Results

This election was fought on new boundaries, with 5 seats added to the 625 in 1951.

The result saw very little change from 1951, with fewer than 25 seats changing hands and only a small swing from Labour to the Conservatives. The only real highlight of the night being in Northern Ireland, where Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

 won 2 seats in a British election for the first time since 1918 (before the Irish free state). Despite deep divisions in the Labour party, the election was not the disaster it could have been. Although little changed, this was a strong victory for the Conservatives, who won the largest share of the vote for a single party in a post war general election.
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All parties shown. Conservatives include National Liberal Party

National Liberal Party (UK, 1931)

The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1931 to 1968...

 and Ulster Unionist

Ulster Unionist Party

The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...

s.

Government's new majority	60
Total votes cast	26,759,729
Turnout	76.8%

Votes summary

Headline Swing: 1.62% to Conservative

Seats summary

Selected Declarations

First Declaration: Cheltenham (Con: 24,259, Lab:16,638. Con hold)

Prime Minister's Seat: Warwick and Leamington (Con: 29,979, Lab: 16,513. Con hold)

See also

• MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1955
  MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1955
  This is a list of Members of Parliament elected to the 41st Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1955 general election, held on 26 May 1955. A total of 630 MPs were elected.Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included William Whitelaw and Geoffrey Rippon....
  
  
• Catalogue of general election ephemera held at LSE Archives

Manifestos

• United for Peace and Progress: The Conservative and Unionist Party's Policy- 1955 Conservative manifesto.
• Forward With Labour: Labour's Policy for the Consideration of the Nation - 1955 Labour Party manifesto.
• Crisis Unresolved - 1955 Liberal Party manifesto.