1959 United Kingdom general election

← 1955 8 October 1959 1964 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All630 seats in theHouse of Commons 316 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	27,862,652 78.7% (1.9pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Harold Macmillan Hugh Gaitskell Jo Grimond Party Conservative Labour Liberal Leader since 10 January 1957 14 December 1955 5 November 1956 Leader's seat Bromley Leeds South Orkney and Shetland Last election 345 seats, 49.7% 277 seats, 46.4% 6 seats, 2.7% Seats won 365[a] 258 6 Seat change 20 19 Popular vote 13,750,875 12,216,172 1,640,760 Percentage 49.4% 43.8% 5.9% Swing 0.3pp 2.6pp 3.2pp
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in§ Results
Composition of theHouse of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Harold Macmillan Conservative Prime Minister after election Harold Macmillan Conservative

The1959 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 8 October 1959. TheConservative Party under the leadership of incumbent prime ministerHarold Macmillan won a landslide victory with a majority of 100 seats. This was their third election victory in a row.

The Conservatives wonthe largest number of votes in Scotland, but narrowly failed to win the most seats in that country. They have not made either achievement ever since. BothJeremy Thorpe, a future Liberal leader, andMargaret Thatcher, a future Conservative leader and eventually Prime Minister, first entered the House of Commons following this election.

Following theSuez Crisis in 1956,Anthony Eden, theConservative Prime Minister, became unpopular. He resigned early in 1957, and was succeeded byChancellor of the ExchequerHarold Macmillan. At that point, theLabour Party, whose leaderHugh Gaitskell had succeededClement Attlee following the1955 general election, enjoyed large leads in opinion polls over the Conservative Party, and it looked as if Labour would win.^[1]

TheLiberal Party also had a new leader,Jo Grimond, so all three parties contested the election with a new leader at the helm.^[1]

However, the Conservatives enjoyed an upturn in fortunes as the economy quickly recovered from theRecession of 1958 under Macmillan's leadership, and his personal approval ratings remained high. At the same time, the Labour Party's popularity suffered due to the rise of industrial disputes in the 1950s and controversies over theCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament. By September 1958, the Conservatives had moved ahead of Labour in the opinion polls.^[1] Parliament was dissolved on 18 September 1959.^[2]

All the three main parties had changed leadership since the previous election. The Conservatives fought under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it" and were boosted by a pre-election economic boom. Macmillan very effectively "summed up" the mood of the British public when he said that most of the people had "never had it so good". Macmillan was very popular, and was described as a politician of the centre ground; in the 1930s he had represented a constituency innorthern England (Stockton-on-Tees), which had experienced large-scaleunemployment and poverty during theGreat Depression. The first week of polling put the Conservatives ahead of Labour by over 5%, but this narrowed as the campaign continued. The Labour Party fought a generally effective campaign, with television broadcasts masterminded byTony Benn under the umbrella of their manifesto entitledBritain Belongs to You, which accused the Conservatives of complacency over thegrowing gap between rich and poor.^[3] Labour's manifesto pledged to reverse reductions inwelfare benefits,pensions, andNational Health Service expenditure; renationalize the steel industry and road haulage; reform secondary education; expandconsumer protections; and create theWelsh Office. It notably promised not to fully nationalise industries which were performing efficiently and profitably, pivoting away from its earlier emphasis onsocialism towardswelfare capitalism.^[4] Hugh Gaitskell made a mistake in declaring that a Labour government would not raisetaxes if it came to power—even though the Labour manifesto contained pledges to increase spending; especially to increasepensions. Although Gaitskell argued revenue would be provided by economic growth, this led some voters to doubt Labour's spending plans, and is cited as a key reason for their defeat.^[1][4]

Early on during election night, it became clear that the Conservative Party had been returned to government with an increased majority, performing better than it had been expected to. For the fourth general election in a row, the Conservatives increased their number of seats, despite experiencing a slight decrease in their share of the vote. However, there were swings to Labour in parts ofnorth-west England, and inScotland; whereScottish Labour had overtaken the Conservative-alignedUnionist Party as the largest single party in terms of seats, despite winning a slightly smaller share of the vote, thanks to overturning narrow majorities in several constituencies. Future Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher was elected to the House of Commons for the first time as the MP forFinchley, where she would represent until her retirement from politics 33 years later at the1992 general election.

For Labour, the result was disappointing; despite appearing more united than they had in recent years under Gaitskell's leadership, the party suffered a third consecutive defeat.James Callaghan believed that the Conservatives increased their majority in part because working-class Labour voters were still angry at the party for opposing theSuez conflict.^[5] Many of both the Labour Party's supporters and opponents, including Prime Minister Macmillan himself, also blamed theGaitskellite leadership for spending more time preparing to form a government with the assumption that they would win the election than actually campaigning or offering criticism of the Conservative Party's leadership. Political scientistsMark Abrams andRichard Rose blamed Labour's electoral losses from 1959 onwards on an "embourgeoisement" in which British voters identified increasingly with the middle class, leaving Labour's appeals to the working class less effective. Another key factor was the decline of support of younger voters after 1955, although older voters over the age of 65 increased support for the party in 1959 because of its pledges to expand pensions.^[4]

While theLiberal Party earned more than twice as many votes compared to the previous general election, this was largely the result of them nominating nearly double the number of candidates that they did four years prior; their average number of votes-per-candidate only slightly improved. Future Liberal Party LeaderJeremy Thorpe was elected to Parliament for the first time, as the MP forNorth Devon.

TheDaily Mirror, despite being a staunch supporter of the Labour Party, wished Macmillan "good luck" on its front page following his election victory.

TheBBC Television Service's election coverage, presented byRichard Dimbleby, was shown onBBC Parliament on 9 October 2009 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the election and again on 9 October 2019 to mark the sixtieth anniversary.

The 1959 general election was the first election to be covered bycommercial television in the United Kingdom. TheITV network provided election night coverage from the studios ofIndependent Television News (ITN) in London, with ITV given permission by theIndependent Television Authority to use all of the ITV companies on air in 1959 for election links to the main studio in London.Ian Trethowan was the presenter for the ITV coverage.^[6]

• All comparisons are with the 1955 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 1959. Such circumstances are marked with a †.

• List of MPs elected in the 1959 United Kingdom general election
• List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1959–1964)
• List of MPs for constituencies in Wales (1959–1964)
• 1959 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
• 1959 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
• 1959 United Kingdom general election in England

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

• The Next Five Years, 1959 Conservative Party manifesto
• Britain Belongs to You: The Labour Party's Policy for Consideration by the British People, 1959 Labour Party manifesto
• People Count, 1959 Liberal Party manifesto

• 1959 United Kingdom general election
• General elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• 1959 elections in the United Kingdom
• October 1959 in the United Kingdom
• Harold Macmillan
• Hugh Gaitskell

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