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1964 United Kingdom general election

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All 630 seats in the House of Commons 316 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	77.1% (1.7 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Harold Wilson Alec Douglas-Home Jo Grimond Party Labour Conservative Liberal Leader since 14 February 1963 18 October 1963 5 November 1956 Leader's seat Huyton Kinross and Western Perthshire Orkney and Shetland Last election 258 seats, 43.8% 365 seats, 49.4% 6 seats, 5.9% Seats won 317 304 9 Seat change 59 61 3 Popular vote 12,205,808 12,002,642 3,099,283 Percentage 44.1% 43.4% 11.2% Swing 0.3 pp 6.0 pp 5.3 pp
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Composition of the House of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Alec Douglas-Home Conservative Prime Minister after election Harold Wilson Labour

The 1964 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 15 October 1964. It resulted in the Conservatives, led by incumbent Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home, narrowly losing to the Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson; Labour secured a parliamentary majority of four seats and ended its thirteen years in opposition since the 1951 election. Wilson became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Rosebery in 1894.

Background

Both major parties had changed leadership in 1963. Following the sudden death of Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell early in the year, the party chose Harold Wilson (at the time, thought of as being on the party's centre-left), while Alec Douglas-Home, at the time the Earl of Home, had taken over as Conservative leader and Prime Minister in October after Harold Macmillan announced his resignation in the wake of the Profumo affair. Douglas-Home shortly afterward disclaimed his peerage under the Peerage Act 1963 in order to lead the party from the Commons, subsequently standing in the Kinross and Western Perthshire by-election.

Macmillan had led the Conservative government since January 1957. Despite initial popularity and a resounding election victory in 1959, he had become increasingly unpopular in the early 1960s, due to rising unemployment and inflation during the recession of 1960–1961 and the United States' cancellation of the Skybolt program intended to provide Britain with an independent nuclear weapons delivery system after the cancellation of the Blue Streak project. Although Macmillan ended the latter crisis with the Nassau Agreement guaranteeing US assistance in the Polaris programme of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, this also indirectly harmed his reputation after French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain's accession bid to the European Communities over his scepticism of the Anglo-American "Special Relationship."

However, the Labour Party was temporarily divided due to the death of Gaitskell in 1963 and the subsequent leadership election. Although Wilson won this election against his opponents George Brown and James Callaghan, he was mistrusted within the party because of his previous unsuccessful leadership challenge to Gaitskell in 1960. The party also suffered from internal policy disputes over unilateral nuclear disarmament and Clause IV of its constitution, which committed it to nationalisation of industry.

It was for a while thought likely that the Conservatives would win the scheduled 1964 general election, albeit with a reduced majority, but the emergence of the Profumo affair in March 1963 and Macmillan's handling of the matter all but destroyed the credibility of his government. While he survived a vote of no confidence in June 1963, polling indicated that Labour would win the next election comfortably if Macmillan remained in power, which, along with health issues, prompted Macmillan to announce his resignation in the autumn of 1963.

Douglas-Home faced a difficult task in rebuilding the party's popularity with just a year elapsing between taking office and having to face a general election. Wilson had begun to try to tie the Labour Party to the growing confidence of Britain in the 1960s, asserting that the "white heat of revolution" would sweep away "restrictive practices ... on both sides of industry". The Liberal Party enjoyed a resurgence after a virtual wipeout in the 1950s, and doubled its share of the vote, primarily at the expense of the Conservatives. Although Labour did not increase its vote share significantly, the fall in support for the Conservatives led to Wilson securing an overall majority of four seats. This proved to be unworkable, and Wilson called a snap election in 1966.

Campaign

The pre-election campaign was prolonged, as Douglas-Home delayed calling a general election to give himself as much time as possible to improve the prospects of his party. The Labour Party indicated that it held high popular support by winning the 1964 London local elections. This led to speculation that the Conservative government would not call an election in 1964 despite constitutional precedent requiring it do so quinquennially in peacetime. However, Conservative leaders became more optimistic about their chances after winning three by-elections in Winchester, Bury St. Edmunds, and Devizes. The election campaign formally began on 25 September 1964 when Douglas-Home saw the Queen and asked for a dissolution of Parliament. The dissolution notably occurred without a formal royal prorogation and recall for the first time since 1922.

The campaign was dominated by some of the more voluble characters of the political scene at the time. While George Brown, deputy leader of the Labour Party, toured the country making energetic speeches (and the occasional gaffe), Quintin Hogg was a leading spokesman for the Conservatives. The image of Hogg lashing out at a Wilson poster with his walking stick was one of the most striking of the campaign.

The Labour Party campaigned on what historian Andrew Thorpe called "the basis of revisionism given a significant twist in the direction of Wilsonian planning, and a more dirigiste approach to industrial modernization." Labour's manifesto Let's Go with Labour for New Britain reflected Wilson's belief that social justice and technological progress would transform industry to create a planned economy capable of providing full employment, rapid economic growth, favourable balance of trade, and control of inflation. Party leaders also decided that they had lost the previous election because of their failure to appeal to the growing middle class, and adjusted strategy accordingly.

Labour called for greater co-ordination between state-run enterprises and repeated its past pledges for the renationalisation of the steel and road haulage industries, but declared that it would not nationalise any further industries. The party also promised expansions of social services, tax reform, and what would become the prices and incomes policy to control inflation. In education it sought comprehensivisation of secondary education and a higher school-leaving age, while in immigration it sought both immigration quotas restricting future entry and equal rights for immigrants who had already arrived in the country. In foreign policy it pledged a re-evaluation of previous governments' foreign aid and alliances, increased British assertiveness at the United Nations, and a build-up of the conventional components of the British Armed Forces, but did not promise unilateral nuclear disarmament as some left-wing members of the party desired. While early campaigning suggested that a Labour government would abandon the Polaris nuclear weapons programme, Wilson quickly decided to avoid this topic altogether due to the continuing popularity of an independent British nuclear deterrent. Labour's platform of a "socialist foreign policy" also criticised the Conservative government for its handling of a scandal involving the British defence contractor Ferranti, the Aden Emergency, Cypriot intercommunal violence, the escalation of the Vietnam War, arms sales to apartheid South Africa, and a contract to construct naval frigates for Francoist Spain.

Douglas-Home's unpopularity – caused by his aristocratic background, his accession to the premiership without a formal election, his economic and trade policies, and the side-lining of popular Conservative leaders such as Enoch Powell and Iain Macleod – harmed the Conservative Party in the election. Even many Conservatives condemned Douglas-Home for the Resale Prices Act 1964 abolishing resale price maintenance. Douglas-Home's predecessor Macmillan described him as an "urbane but resolute character — iron painted to look like wood". However, his campaigning did allow the Conservative Party's gap in the polls to narrow. The Conservative manifesto Prosperity with a Purpose pledged closer relations with the Atlantic world and the Commonwealth of Nations, development of nuclear power, industrial retraining, increased capital investment in British industry, and continued development of the BAC TSR-2 supersonic aircraft project. The Conservative campaign emphasised the party's diplomatic successes, such as the Nassau Agreement, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the defence of Malaysia in the Borneo Confrontation. Although the Conservatives made limited appeals to new Caribbean, African, and South Asian immigrants by printing campaign literature in Hindi and Urdu, it defended the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 restricting immigration of Commonwealth citizens.

As in previous elections since its decline, the Liberal Party under Jo Grimond's leadership positioned itself as a non-socialist, individualist alternative to Labour. The two key domestic policy pledges in its manifesto Think for Yourself, Vote Liberal were healthcare reform and devolution for Scotland and Wales. The Liberals also were distinguished by their internationalist and pro-European foreign policy, becoming the first major party to endorse British membership in the European Economic Union. Supporters and leaders of the Liberal Party hoped for a breakthrough in 1964 which would re-establish it as a powerful force in British politics after its near-extinction in the 1950s; the party's surprise victory in the 1962 Orpington by-election, its first in a seat outside of the "Celtic fringe" of Wales, Scotland, and the West Country in over a decade, had created optimism and a sense of momentum for a recovery. However, by 1964 the Liberals had lost much of their momentum to a series of by-election and local election losses, and faced growing financial difficulties.

Many party speakers, especially at televised rallies, had to deal with hecklers; in particular Douglas-Home was treated very roughly at a meeting in Birmingham. Douglas-Home's speeches dealt with the future of the nuclear deterrent, while fears of Britain's relative decline on the world stage, reflected in chronic balance of payment problems, helped the Labour Party's case.

By 1964, television had developed as a medium and played a much greater role than in previous British elections. The election received more coverage from current affairs programs such as BBC1's Panorama, Associated-Rediffusion's This Week, and Granada Television's World in Action, as well as political satire inspired by the success of That Was the Week That Was. The election night was broadcast live by BBC Television, presented for the fifth and final time by Richard Dimbleby, with Robin Day, Ian Trethowan, Cliff Michelmore and David Butler co-presenting.

Opinion polling

• NOP: Lab swing 3.5% (Lab majority of 12)
• Gallup: Lab swing 4% (Lab majority of 23)
• Research Services: Lab swing 2.75% (Con majority of 30)
• Daily Express: Lab swing of 1.75% (Con majority of 60)

Results

The Conservatives made a surprising recovery from being well behind Labour when Home became prime minister, and would have won if 900 voters in eight seats had changed votes. Labour won a very slim majority of four seats, forming a government for the first time since 1951. Labour achieved a swing of just over 3%, although its vote rose by only 0.3% and it earned a lesser number of votes than in its previous defeats of 1955 and 1959. The main shift in votes was a 5.7% swing from the Conservatives to the Liberals. The Liberals defied popular expectations of a net loss and won nearly twice as many votes as in 1959, partly because they fielded 150 more candidates. Although this was the Liberals' best electoral performance since the 1929 general election and left the party in a key parliamentary position due to Labour's slender majority, it failed to regain its pre-World War II status as a party of government as it had hoped. Wilson became Prime Minister, replacing Douglas-Home; Labour's four-seat majority was not sustainable for a full Parliament, and Wilson ultimately called another general election in 1966 which saw his majority expanded. In particular, the small majority meant the government could not implement its policy of renationalising the steel industry due to the opposition of backbenchers Woodrow Wyatt and Desmond Donnelly.

89 female candidates stood in the election, with 29 women being elected as MPs (11 for the Conservatives and 18 for Labour).

This was the only election in Britain's recent history when all seats were won by the three main parties: no minor parties, independents or splinter groups won any seats. It is also the only time that both Labour and the Conservatives have taken over 300 seats each, and was the last election in which any one party (the Conservatives) contested every single seat. The Conservatives had previously chose not to contest certain Liberal-held seats as per local-level agreements to avoid vote splitting, but ended that policy at this election. The resultant splitting of votes actually helped grant Labour a majority, by throwing two formerly Liberal-held seats in northern England to Labour; however, the outcome of the election would not have been meaningfully altered had the Liberals retained the seats, as Labour would still have had as many seats as the other two parties combined, and Liberal leader Jo Grimond did not want to support a Conservative minority government.

Douglas-Home told D. R. Thorpe that the most important reason for the Conservative loss was Iain Macleod's "The Tory Leadership" article, in which the former cabinet minister claimed that an Etonian "magic circle" conspiracy had led to him becoming prime minister. British Ambassador to the United States David Ormsby-Gore wrote to Home that "Almost anything could have tipped the balance. Khrushchev's removal from office twelve hours earlier, China’s nuclear explosion thirty-six hours earlier or just Rab keeping his mouth shut for once." David Butler and Donald E. Stokes's influential 1969 British Election Study report Political Change in Britain attributed the Labour victory to Wilson's greater popularity than Home and the party's appeal to younger voters. After British elections in the 1980s and the 1990s challenged many of the assumptions of Butler and Stokes's model, the BES issued a second 2001 report by political scientists from the University of Texas and the University of Essex emphasizing the role of valence politics over public perception of party performance.

Working-class voters also selected Labour in greater numbers than in the previous election, due in part to the weakening of the post-war boom which had popularized the Conservatives in the 1950s, although the Conservatives attracted a greater number of female voters than before. The Conservatives tried to attract working-class voters by improving the party's relationships with trade unions through the Conservative Trade Union Councils at the party level and the new National Economic Development Council at the governmental level; however, their outreach was weakened by the Rookes v Barnard decision allowing employers to collect punitive damages from strike actions and Douglas-Home's tough approach to industrial relations. As a result, trade unions heavily supported Labour in the election and encouraged working-class support of the party. As much as 85 per cent of Labour's election spending consisted of funds raised by trade unions.

Aggregate data analyses of the results demonstrate higher turnout in constituencies dominated by the professional–managerial class, agricultural workers, council tenants, voters without automobiles, and the elderly. Many salaried professionals who ordinarily supported for the Conservatives voted for Labour because of high inflation. On the other hand, Labour's poorer performance in central and southern England and loss of five seats in that area indicated an increasing white working-class backlash against nonwhite immigration. The most notable example of this was the contest in Smethwick, in which an explicitly racist campaign by Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths stoking anxieties around deindustrialisation and a shortage of council housing by targeting immigrants unseated Shadow Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker.

Votes summary

Seats summary

Transfers of seats

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "1964 United Kingdom general election" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

• All comparisons are with the 1959 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 1964. Such circumstances are marked with a †.

• Seat gained by Labour in a by-election but regained by the Conservatives in 1964.
• Seat gained by Conservatives in a 1961 by-election but regained by Labour in another 1963 by-election.

Incumbents defeated

Televised results programmes

Both BBC Television and ITV provided live televised coverage of the results and provided commentary.

See also

• List of MPs elected in the 1964 United Kingdom general election
• Smethwick in the 1964 general election
• 1964 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
• 1964 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

Notes

1. ^ The seat and vote count figures for the Conservatives given here include the Speaker of the House of Commons
2. This summary of opinion poll findings from the last few days of the campaign is given early in the BBC's election night coverage.
3. Conservative total includes Scottish Unionists, Ulster Unionists, and National Liberals.

References

1. Barberis, Peter (September 2007). "Introduction: The 1964 General Election—the 'Not Quite, But' and 'But Only Just' Election". Contemporary British History. 21 (3): 284–285. doi:10.1080/13619460600825840. ISSN 1361-9462. S2CID 144383151 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
2. ^ Thorpe, Andrew (1997). A History of the British Labour Party. London: Macmillan Education UK. pp. 154–156. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0. ISBN 978-0-333-56081-5.
3. Fielding 2007, p. 315.
4. 1964: Labour scrapes through, BBC News, 5 April 2005, retrieved 21 May 2018
5. Schaffer, B. B. (7 April 2008). "The British General Election, 1964: A Retrospect". Australian Journal of Politics & History. 11 (1): 7–22. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8497.1965.tb00411.x.
6. Fielding, Steven (September 2007). "Rethinking Labour's 1964 Campaign". Contemporary British History. 21 (3): 309–324. doi:10.1080/13619460600825873. ISSN 1361-9462. S2CID 153901372 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
7. ^ Barberis (2007), p. 286
8. Young 2007, p. 362-364.
9. ^ Young, John W. (September 2007). "International Factors and the 1964 Election". Contemporary British History. 21 (3): 353–355. doi:10.1080/13619460600825931. ISSN 1361-9462. S2CID 154812255.
10. Thorpe, D. R. (1996). Alec Douglas-Home. London: Sinclair-Stevenson. pp. 8, 490 note 21. ISBN 978-1-85619-277-4. Retrieved 26 August 2023 – via Internet Archive. Thorpe cites a PRO file. According to Peter Hennessy in his 19 November 1996 lecture 'Country Values': Alec Douglas - Home, 1963-64 (and chapter 11 of The prime minister: the office and its holders since 1945) Thorpe on 9 October 1996 quoted Macmillan telling the Queen "Alec Home is steel painted as wood".
11. "Sir Alec Douglas-Home | prime minister of United Kingdom | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
12. ^ "History of Sir Alec Douglas-Home - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
13. Schaffer 2008, p. 11.
14. ^ Barberis (2007), p. 288
15. Young 2007, p. 360.
16. ^ Young (2007), p. 361-362
17. ^ Barberis, Peter (September 2007). "The 1964 General Election and the Liberals' False Dawn". Contemporary British History. 21 (3): 373–379. doi:10.1080/13619460600825949. ISSN 1361-9462. S2CID 153819205 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
18. John W. Young, "International Factors and the 1964 Election." Contemporary British History (2007) 21#3 pp 351-371.
19. UK General Election 1964 – Results Round-up on YouTube Retrieved 21 May 2018.
20. ^ Vernon Bogdanor (18 January 2014). "The Spectator book review that brought down Macmillan's government". The Spectator. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
21. Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1966. Epsom, Surrey: Business Directories Limited. 1966. pp. 574–575.
22. Denver, David (1 September 2007). "The 1964 General Election: Explaining Voting Behaviour Then and Now". Contemporary British History. 21 (3): 295–307. doi:10.1080/13619460600825857. ISSN 1361-9462. S2CID 153838758 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
23. Wrigley, Chris (September 2007). "Trade Unions and the 1964 General Election". Contemporary British History. 21 (3): 326–328. doi:10.1080/13619460600825899. ISSN 1361-9462. S2CID 153352143 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
24. Barberis 2007, p. 190-191.
25. Wrigley 2007, p. 331.
26. Denver 2007, p. 304.
27. Schaffer (2008), p. 16-19
28. "United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979". Archived from the original on 23 February 2008.
29. "Summary of the election".

Further reading

• Barberis, Peter (September 2007), "The 1964 General Election and the Liberals' False Dawn", Contemporary British History, 21 (3): 373–387, doi:10.1080/13619460600825949, S2CID 153819205
• Butler, David E.; et al. (1965), The British General Election of 1964, the standard scholarly study.
• Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
• Denver, David (2007), "The 1964 General Election: Explaining Voting Behaviour Then and Now", Contemporary British History, 21 (3): 295–307, doi:10.1080/13619460600825857, S2CID 153838758
• Favretto, Ilaria (2000), "'Wilsonism' reconsidered: Labour party revisionism 1952–64", Contemporary British History, 14 (4): 54–80, doi:10.1080/13619460008581603, S2CID 154861968
• Fielding, Steven (September 2007), "Rethinking Labour's 1964 Campaign", Contemporary British History, 21 (3): 309–324, doi:10.1080/13619460600825873, S2CID 153901372
• Heppell, Timothy (2010), "The Labour Party Leadership Election of 1963: Explaining the Unexpected Election of Harold Wilson", Contemporary British History, 24 (2): 151–171, doi:10.1080/13619461003768264, S2CID 144217106
• Morgan, Austen (1992), Harold Wilson, p. 625
• Tomlinson, Jim (September 2007), "It's the Economy, Stupid! Labour and the Economy, circa 1964", Contemporary British History, 21 (3): 337–349, doi:10.1080/13619460600825915, S2CID 154318971
• Wrigley, Chris (September 2007), "Trade Unions and the 1964 General Election", Contemporary British History, 21 (3): 325–335, doi:10.1080/13619460600825899, S2CID 153352143
• Young, John W. (September 2007), "International Factors and the 1964 Election", Contemporary British History, 21 (3): 351–371, doi:10.1080/13619460600825931, S2CID 154812255

Manifestos

• Prosperity With a Purpose, 1964 Conservative Party manifesto
• The New Britain, 1964 Labour Party manifesto
• Think for Yourself, 1964 Liberal Party manifesto

v t e Elections and referendums in the United Kingdom
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European elections	1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019
Referendums	1975 2011 2016
See also Elections in England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales Great Britain

v t e Alec Douglas-Home
Premiership	Ministry 1964 general election
Constituencies	Lanark Kinross and Western Perthshire
Family	Charles Douglas-Home, 13th Earl of Home (father) Elizabeth Douglas-Home (wife) William Douglas Home (brother) David Douglas-Home, 15th Earl of Home (son) Charles Douglas-Home (nephew)
See also	Earl of Home The Hirsel Peerage Act 1963 1963 Kinross and Western Perthshire by-election 1964 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours D'Oliveira affair

v t e Harold Wilson
Premierships	1964–1970 1974–1976
General elections	1964 1966 1970 February 1974 October 1974
Party elections	1960 leadership 1962 deputy leadership 1963 leadership
Shadow Cabinet elections	1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960
Referendum	1975 European Communities membership
Constituencies	Ormskirk Huyton
Resignation Honours	1970 1976
Family	Mary Wilson (wife) Robin Wilson (son) Harold Seddon (Uncle)
Media and popular culture	Mrs. Wilson's Diary Yesterday's Men (TV documentary, 1971) The Lavender List (TV, 2006) Longford (TV, 2006) Made in Dagenham (Film, 2010) The Audience (Play, 2013) The Crown (TV, 2019) Stonehouse (TV, 2023)
Related articles	Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence Beira Patrol D-notice affair Gnomes of Zurich Harold Wilson plot allegations Clockwork Orange Harry letters affair In Place of Strife Wilson Doctrine Bibliography
Category

• 1964 United Kingdom general election
• General elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• 1964 elections in the United Kingdom
• October 1964 events in the United Kingdom
• Alec Douglas-Home
• Harold Wilson
• History of the Labour Party (UK)