 | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| ||
|---|---|---|
Minister of Health (1945–1951)
Minister of Labour (1951) Opposition roles
Key works & legacy
 | ||
The1955 Labour Party leadership election was held following the resignation ofClement Attlee. Attlee wasPrime Minister from 1945 to 1951 and stayed on asparty leader until he lost the1955 general election.
Despite his advancing age and Labour's loss of the1951 general election, Labour Party LeaderClement Attlee delayed his retirement from politics in order to keep the Labour Party united during its fracture betweenGaitskellite andBevanite factions. He also did not want Deputy LeaderHerbert Morrison to assume full Leadership.[2] Beginning with the retirement ofHugh Dalton following the 1951 election most senior members of the Labour Party aside from Morrison resigned from the government, leaving the leadership open to a new generation of the party when Attlee finally resigned due to Labour's loss of the 1955 election.[3]
Morrison was once considered the heir apparent to Attlee, but by the early 1950s was widely distrusted and was considered to be too old for the job.[3]Aneurin Bevan had next been considered the primary front-runner for the Labour Party leadership, but had resigned from the Cabinet in 1951 to protest the introduction ofNational Health Serviceprescription charges. Despite the Bevanites dominating theNational Executive Committee, Bevan himself weakened his support through his hostile relations with theParliamentary Labour Party.Hugh Gaitskell simultaneously emerged as a potential candidate after a successful tenure asChancellor of the Exchequer and after thetrade union movement which had backed Bevan increasingly gravitated towards him.[2]
Three candidates were nominated, The left wing father of theNational Health Service, Bevan, the younger centrist candidate from the right wing of the party Gaitskell, the formerChancellor of the Exchequer and the formerDeputy Prime Minister Morrison, who had been deputy leader as well as having served in the senior ministerial offices ofHome Secretary andForeign Secretary, was also seeking the leadership. Morrison, the leading London politician of his generation, had been an MP since 1923 (with some breaks) and was representingLewisham South in 1955.
Morrison believed he would easily win against Gaitskell and Bevan on the basis of seniority, despite being warned he would actually be routed due to his old age and unpopularity in the party. Gaitskell initially endorsed Morrison but entered the race himself in order to prevent Bevan from winning. Bevan likewise continued his campaign despite being aware he could not win solely to deny Gaitskell the leadership, at one point proposing that they both stand down and allow Morrison to run unopposed.[2] Gaitskell crucially won the endorsement of the "Big Three" trade unions who between them sponsored 40 percent of Labour MPs: theTransport and General Workers' Union underArthur Deakin, theNational Union of Mineworkers underWill Lawther, and theGeneral and Municipal Workers Union underTom Williamson.[3]
The result of the only ballot of Labour MPs on 14 December was as follows:
| Only ballot: 14 December 1955 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | % | |
| Hugh Gaitskell | 157 | 58.8 | |
| Aneurin Bevan | 70 | 26.2 | |
| Herbert Morrison | 40 | 15.0 | |
| Majority | 87 | 32.6 | |
| Turnout | 267 | 96.4 | |
| Hugh Gaitskell elected | |||
Gaitskell won the largest victory of any Labour Party leadership election untilNeil Kinnock in1983.
Following the election, Morrison resigned asDeputy Leader of the Labour Party.[4] Bevan also ran for the subsequent1956 Labour Party deputy leadership election but narrowly lost toJim Griffiths. However, he performed well enough in the election to be re-elected to Gaitskell's Shadow Cabinet, and the Gaitskellite and Bevanite factions of the party would increasingly reconcile after theSuez Crisis.[3] Bevan finally became Deputy Leader after Griffiths' retirement in 1959 and held the office until his death a year later.
| Political career |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Shadow Cabinet elections | ||
| Party leadership elections | ||
| General elections | ||
| Family | ||
| Related topics | ||
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)