1955 United Kingdom general election

← 1951 26 May 1955 1959 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All630 seats in theHouse of Commons 316 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	26,759,729 76.8% (5.8pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Anthony Eden Clement Attlee Clement Davies Party Conservative Labour Liberal Leader since 7 April 1955 25 October 1935 2 August 1945 Leader's seat Warwick and Leamington Walthamstow West Montgomeryshire Last election 321 seats, 48.0% 295 seats, 48.8% 6 seats, 2.5% Seats won 345[note 1] 277 6 Seat change 23 18 Popular vote 13,310,891 12,405,254 722,402 Percentage 49.7% 46.4% 2.7% Swing 1.7pp 2.4pp 0.2pp
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in§ Results
Composition of theHouse of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Anthony Eden Conservative Prime Minister after election Anthony Eden Conservative

The1955 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 26 May 1955. It was asnap election:Anthony Eden called the election after succeedingChurchill in April 1955 to secure a mandate. Thegovernment won a 60-seat majority, achieving the highest post-war party vote share. It was the first election under QueenElizabeth II.

The election was fought on new boundaries, with five seats added to the 625 fought in 1951. At the same time, theConservative Party had returned to power for the first time sinceWorld War II and increased its popularity by accepting themixed economy andwelfare state created by the previousLabour Party government. It also was lauded for its economic policy after endingrationing, improving foreign trade, and even outperforming Labour in the construction ofpublic housing.^[1]: 137 The "giveaway budget" of ChancellorRab Butler prior to the election also improved the popularity of the Conservative Party.^[2] On election day, theDaily 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".^[3]

The BBC later described the election as the "dullest" afterWorld War II.^[4] TheDaily Express wrote that the British people were more interested inPrincess Margaret's romance with Peter Townsend.^[5] The Labour Party, then in its twentieth year of leadership underClement Attlee, steadily lost ground owing to infighting between the left-wing (Bevanites) and the right-wing (Gaitskellites), resulting in an unclear election message. It pledgedequal pay for women, renationalisation of the steel industry and road haulage,comprehensive secondary education, and vague guarantees of greaterindustrial democracy andworkers' control ofnationalised industries as demanded by Bevanites but otherwise offered little new policy.^{[1]: 140–141} It was the fifth and last general election fought by Labour leaderClement Attlee, who by this time was 72 years old. Eden had only become Leader of the Conservative Party a few weeks before the election, following the retirement of former Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, but he had long been considered the heir apparent to the Conservative leadership. Eden called a dissolution of parliament and a new general election as soon as he took office in April 1955. The Conservatives were hoping to take advantage of the end offood rationing and the positive atmosphere created by thecoronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Eden himself was telegenic (although not as great a public speaker as Churchill, who was now infirm and 80 years old) and gradual economic growth benefited the party greatly.^[4] Parliament was dissolved on 6 May.^[6]

The result showed 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 was inNorthern Ireland, whereSinn Féin won two seats at a UK election for the first time since1918 (before the secession ofSouthern Ireland).

The Labour Party suffered at this time from deep internal divisions, yet for it this 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 seats for a single party at a post-war general election. It became the first party since the passage of theReform Act 1867 to increase its parliamentary majority after a term in office.^[1]: 141

The Liberal Party had yet another poor performance, only slightly improving their popular vote total from the previous election, and again winning just six seats. Five of their six seats did not have Conservative challengers, as per local-level agreements to avoid vote-splitting which likely would have thrown the seats to Labour; the only Liberal candidate to be victorious against both Conservative and Labour challengers wasOrkney and Shetland MPJo Grimond, who was first elected in 1950. The poor national showing was widely viewed as the death knell for the embattled leadership ofClement Davies, who resigned the following year and was replaced by Grimond.

Future Labour leaderMichael Foot lost his seat ofPlymouth Devonport at this election; he returned forEbbw Vale at a1960 by-election.

For the first time, television took a prominent role in the campaign; this is the earliest UK general election of which television coverage survives (the 1950 and 1951 election nights were broadcast on television live, but the footage was not recorded). Only three hours of the coverage, presented byRichard Dimbleby, was kept; this was rebroadcast onBBC Parliament on the fiftieth and sixtieth anniversaries of the date of the election.

• 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)

• All comparisons are with the 1951 election.
  • In some cases the change is due to the MP defecting to the gaining party. Such circumstances are marked with a *.
  • In other circumstances the change is due to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1955. Such circumstances are marked with a †. The parliament of 1951–55 only saw one by-election where a seat changed hands (Sunderland South), and unusually this was a gain for the party in government.

• List of MPs elected in the 1955 United Kingdom general election
• List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1955–1959)
• List of MPs for constituencies in Wales (1955–1959)
• 1955 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
• 1955 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
• 1955 United Kingdom general election in England
• 1955 United Kingdom local elections

• Butler, David E. (1956),The British General Election of 1955, the standard study

• United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979Archived 23 February 2008 at theWayback Machine

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

• 1955 United Kingdom general election
• General elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• 1955 elections in the United Kingdom
• May 1955 in the United Kingdom
• Clement Attlee
• Anthony Eden

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