1951 United Kingdom general election

← 1950 25 October 1951 1955 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All625 seats in theHouse of Commons 313 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	28,596,594 82.6% (1.3pp)
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 4.6pp 2.7pp 6.6pp
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in§ Results
Composition of theHouse of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Clement Attlee Labour Prime Minister after election Winston Churchill Conservative

The1951 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 25 October 1951, just twenty months after the previous general election in1950; theLabourgovernment called the election in hopes of increasing its parliamentary majority. However, this backfired, as even though Labour won the most votes, it was theConservatives who won a majority, with the collapse of theLiberal vote allowing the Conservatives to gain seats by default.^[1]

Up to that point, the Labour Party achieved the most votes cast for a party; however, this would be surpassed several times, with the Conservatives breaking the record in1992 and2019. (13,948,385 is also the highest number of votes Labour ever won in a general election.) The Conservatives would also exceed the popular vote percentage (48.8%) achieved by Labour, in1955 and1959, winning over 49% in both cases. Turnout in this election declined slightly.

The election marked the return ofWinston Churchill asPrime 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 KingGeorge 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 didbetter in Scotland than inEngland.

The 1951 election was the second one to be covered onBBC Television. On election night, the results were televised from the BBCAlexandra 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.^[2]

KingGeorge VI feared since that the government had such a slim majority, and he was to leave the country to go on his plannedCommonwealth 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.^[3] (In the event, the King became too ill to travel and delegated the tour to his daughterPrincess Elizabeth shortly before his death in February 1952.) Parliament was dissolved on 5 October 1951.^[4]

TheLabour government, which had implemented most of its manifesto from the1945 election, was beginning to lose cabinet ministers, such asErnest Bevin (death) andStafford Cripps (health issues). TheConservative Party, however, had more MPs since the1950 general election.

The Labour Party entered the election by being weakened by the emerging schism betweenGaitskellites, on the right of the party, and theBevanites, on its left.^[5] 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.^[6] It also contrasted the Britain of 1951 with that of theinterwar years in which there had been largely Conservative-led governments by noting that the interwar period had seen "mass-unemployment; mass fear; mass misery".^[7] It did not promise morenationalisations, unlike in the previous year's election, and instead focused on offering morecouncil housing and a pledge to "associate the workers more closely with the administration of public industries and services". However, it remained opposed to fullworkers' control of industries.^[5]

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 theBritish welfare state or theNational Health Service which the Labour government had established.^[8] The manifesto, however, promised to "stop all further nationalisation" and to repeal theSteel Act, which had been introduced by the Labour government and was being implemented during the election season. The Conservatives also attacked Labour for endingwartime rationing andprice controls too slowly and for the rise of industrial conflicts after the end of the wartimewage freeze and theDefence Regulations bans onstrike actions.^[5][9]

As for theLiberal Party, its poor election result in1950 only worsened this time. Unable to get the same insurance against losses ofdeposits 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 theLiberal Democrats has not fallen so low since, but their lowest number of six seats would be matched in several future elections.^[10] The Liberal Party's growing irrelevance weakened the Labour Party since two thirds of potential Liberal voters supported the Conservatives.^[5]

Four candidates were returned unopposed, all of themUlster Unionists in Northern Ireland. It is the most recent general election in which any candidates have been returned unopposed although there have been later unopposedby-elections.^[11]

The subsequent Labour defeat was significant for several reasons. The party polled almost a quarter-million votes more than the Conservative Party and itsNational Liberal Party ally combined; won the most votes that Labour has ever won (as of 2024); 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'svictory 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 inLancashire, theHome Counties andEast Anglia.^[5] Under thefirst-past-the-post electoral system, many Labour votes were "wasted" because they were included in large majorities for MPs insafe seats.

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

Headline swing: 1.13% to Conservative.

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

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

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

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

• 1951 United Kingdom general election
• 1951 elections in the United Kingdom
• General elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• October 1951 in the United Kingdom
• Electoral history of Winston Churchill
• Clement Attlee

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