The British General Election of 1950

0. Introduction

With the results of the 1976 General Election still resounding across the country ending 31 continuous years of Labour government, there has been much recall of the spirit of 1945 and the monumental victory of Clement Attlee which brought Labour into power for such a lengthy period. However, the authors of this monograph consider not the original landslide 1945 to be the pivotal election; nor 1959 where Anthony Wedgwood Benn's carefully produced television performances turned what looked like an inevitable defeat into an another very slightly increased majority; or even the much discussed 1968 near-debacle after the Sterling Crisis and the resignation of Chancellor Harold Wilson. To us the pivotal election was 1950 because whichever party won the 1950 election was bound to benefit from the steady growth of the economy throughout the rest of the 1950's and the early 1960's.

1950 also set one record which will probably never be surpassed, a turnout of just under 85% of the electorate. It was seen as being a close election, with Sir Winston Churchill's Conservatives on the rebound as part of the inevitable affects of five years of enforced Labour austerity after the peace in Europe. There was a fear within the Labour party that they would lose or be returned with an unworkably small majority, leaving it at the mercy of the fates as to when the next election would be.

Obviously, whilst there was some very basic opinion polling for the 1950 election, it was not widely used by the political parties, nor did it feature greatly in the newspapers. The victory of President Truman in 1948 despite the predictions had left a negative impression of polling on the political parties. Feedback was gained from the extensive team of agents in the field for each party and was generally giving the impression of being a close race. Most of the marginal seats were known quantities, but the boundary changes and in some cases local issues affecting the campaign did throw up some surprises.

It is difficult to tell what actually tipped the scales in favour of the slender but workable Labour majority, at the time much credence was given to the increased number of Liberal candidates. Over 530 Liberals stood in the election - up from 309 at the 1945 election and whilst the party had no great success, it was felt that the Liberals impacted the Conservative vote to a greater extent than the Labour vote. Whilst they only polled just over 13% in the end, the doyen of psephologists, Dr Butler, believes their improved performance may have cost the Conservatives up to 15 seats.

Others look at the results of the Boundary Commission, whilst the 1945 election had seen Labour triumph in places in had never even considered such as Taunton or Spelithorne, a large number of seats had been won in the cities which had now been abolished due to massive depopulation since 1918. The reduction in Southwark's seats from six to three, took three seats away from Labour and there were similar losses in the rest of London and the great provincial cities. Similarly, the larger provincial and suburban seats some of which had swollen to over 100,000 voters split usually from one solidly Conservative seat to two solidly Conservative seats. The boundaries may have looked better for the Conservatives than they actually were, leading to complacency in seats like Spelthorne, Bromsgrove and Bexley where the Conservative campaign was felt to be weak. The boundaries did not end up being changed substantially again until the 1976 election which led to a growing bias in favour of Labour.

However, we contend that those three experimental Television Party Political Broadcasts were actually what may have finally sent the election Mr Attlee's way. It had been touch or go whether to do them, the Conservatives were certainly strongly against the idea, but with no BBC reporting of the campaign at all, on either television or radio, because of a very legalistic interpretation of the Representation of the People Act 1948, a single broadcast for each party was finally decided upon. Whilst the television audience was not large in 1950, television only became popular after the Coronation in 1953, it was available to an influential group of people. The broadcasts were sufficiently novel to mean that small broadcast watching parties were organised, therefore giving them a wider circulation than had been previously imagined.

The first broadcast was by the Conservatives, did not feature Winston Churchill, which was widely talked about at the time. The decision had been Mr Churchill's who did not like television and the broadcast was done very competently in an staged interview format by Anthony Eden, however, the talk was that Churchill had been too ill to perform. The Labour broadcast did feature Mr Attlee, but only in a very short shot to camera at the end, most of it featured Hartley Shawcross and Christopher Mayhew again in an interview format - interestingly using the same figures as Mr Eden but demonstrating a different conclusion to them. This counter-attack was again a big talking point during the campaign. The final broadcast was by the Liberals, they had originally planned a speech read by the octogenarian Lord Samuel, but the trial run of it was a disaster and it was replaced by a shorter punchy piece featuring Liberal candidates Mark Bonham-Carter and Jo Grimond interviewing "ordinary people" in their homes.

The reaction to the broadcasts according to various mass observation exercises were three-fold, there was a great deal of concern about why Mr Churchill had not appeared in the broadcasts, there was a considerable debate over whether the Conservatives or Labour were telling the truth of the matter of the economic statistics and the Liberal party gained a lot more public attention than they would have normally expected during the campaign.
 
Well, this is interesting, I think I get what's going on, though I will check my copy of Swing to make sure I'm right about the difference with the broadcasts.
 
I like this, and not just because of the implied Tage Erlander-esque dominance of the Labour Party.

Can't wait to see more. :)
 
Absolutely excellent. A media POD, explored through endlessly readable and spot-on 1970s academic prose.

The Churchill decision and the fallout are eminently plausible, as is the interview format dominating the airwaves. The Liberals trying something new sounds good, and Samuel being terrible on camera rings a bell - didn't they have this problem IRL in some way?

Pray continue, Iain!
 

John Farson

Banned
An interesting scenario, to be sure. I suppose we'll find out just how exactly Labour was able to crack the Conservatives' traditionally strong position in British politics. Perhaps a more pro-nuclear weapons Labour in this alternate timeline? You know, "strong in national welfare, strong in national defence" sort of thing?
 
Absolutely excellent. A media POD, explored through endlessly readable and spot-on 1970s academic prose.

The Churchill decision and the fallout are eminently plausible, as is the interview format dominating the airwaves. The Liberals trying something new sounds good, and Samuel being terrible on camera rings a bell - didn't they have this problem IRL in some way?

Pray continue, Iain!

I cannot speak for Iain - but I imagine that ditching the Samuel speech is probably the main PoD here (PPBs were, of course not introduced until 1951 in OTL) I understand that the good Lord was the first politician to appear on television making a PPB, and it was indeed an unmitigated disaster.

The Tories had a really successful one in the 1951 election as well, because Winston didn't take part in it, but Anthony Eden did, being interviewed by Leslie Mitchell.

You can find a lot of early examples here.

I concur with everything else that has been said Iain, really looking forward to reading more!
 
1. The First Election Night

As used as we are to modern elections, we forget that "Election Night" is a modern phenomenon, it wasn't until the 1959 election that a majority of constituencies declared overnight and it wasn't until the 1968 election that either the BBC or ITV did any coverage beyond 2am. The full blown all night TV experience with Cliff Mitchelmore at the helm only first occurred in the 1968 election and simple computer-generated graphics first enthralled the nation at the 1976 election.

BBC producer Grace Wyndham Goldie persuaded the BBC to put on an election night programme, there was some opposition from the technicians who did not like the idea of the transmitters being on so late and some opposition from the unions who felt it was outside the terms and conditions. With only just over 200 mainly urban seats declaring overnight, it was felt that a two hour programme would suffice as an experiment.

Television first election night was indeed a very spartan thing. There was no panel of politicians, no panel of journalists, a very simple map designed by David Butler and only one outside broadcast to Piccadilly Circus where people had gathered to see the results come in. It started at 10pm, one hour after the polls (which had just had their opening time extended to 9pm) had closed as the first results were expected around then. The main presenter was Chester Wilmot who was usually on radio, and he was assisted by R.B. McCallum who had written the definitive book on the 1945 election. McCallum insisted on having his assistant David Butler along to help him with the statistics. Wilmot presented as if it was a news show and McCallum was rather wooden, but Butler saved the show. It was distinctly cheap and cheerful, but it was a success with the audience.

Results were presented by painting the results on caption cards after they had been calculated by students with slide-rules and the caption card was filmed in another studio with Wilmot reading the result and McCallum or by the end of the programme more likely Butler commenting on it. As there was no political commentary, there was considerably more statistical comment that was usual from later election programmes. Wilmot would comment briefly on the result and on the new MP and then McCallum and Butler would comment on the numbers with Wilmot providing linkage.

There was no race to be the first seat to declare, that only started in 1954 when some savvy Town Clerks in Cheltenham and Salford realised that there could be some publicity for them in coming first - an act that was repaid by the introduction of Outside Broadcasts in 1959. However, the first seat to declare was Salford West, where ominously the Liberal just lost their deposit and the Labour majority held up well at just over 16,000. The Liberals were barely mentioned during the evening, only two of their seats could be called "urban" and none of them were declaring overnight. Their fate was not be be determined until the next day. Not all the overnight seats were shown, caption slides had only been prepared for the "most important" 120 seats and with the massive turnout, not all of those were used. Only around half the overnight seats had declared by midnight and only 78 of the caption slides were used.

Most of the key results were actually counting on the Friday, but as Labour clung onto the London marginals of Bexley, Chislehurst and Woolwich West just before 11pm, it was clear that there would be another Labour government. As Wolverhampton SW and the Erdington Division of Birmingham were held by Labour, Butler introduced the audience to the concept of swing, stating that from the result that he'd seen so far during then evening, the Labour party would have a working majority of around 40 and that the Liberals would lose around 80 to 100 deposits.

Unfortunately, there is no footage remaining of this election, just a few publicity stills but it it was regarded as a sufficient success and national event big enough for Grace Wyndham Goldie to be give the remit to produce the next election show with a slightly bigger budget and some innovations.
 
Excellent again, Iain. Original and innovative, but utterly believable - I love the idea of a cheap and cheerful basic election night programme in 1950. The image of no politicians or political journalists, only statisticians, is also a clever and very plausible idea. It must have been a very different night.
 
Excellent again, Iain. Original and innovative, but utterly believable - I love the idea of a cheap and cheerful basic election night programme in 1950. The image of no politicians or political journalists, only statisticians, is also a clever and very plausible idea. It must have been a very different night.

It is actually what happened, the only AH in there is the results. Two of which are rather significant.
 
Hmm. So Powell loses out in Wolverhampton South West and Ted Heath doesn't get win Bexley.

Yeah, that's a couple of future giants missing out there:eek:
 
Hmm. So Powell loses out in Wolverhampton South West and Ted Heath doesn't get win Bexley.

Yeah, that's a couple of future giants missing out there:eek:

Yes, Powell loses by 198 and Heath by just over 1,700. The London suburbs have stayed very loyal to Labour. Their fates will be part of chapter 5.
 

John Farson

Banned
It's good to remember just how bizarre both the 1950 and 1951 elections were OTL. Despite polling more than one and a half million more votes than the Conservatives and their allies, and receiving more votes than they had in 1945, Labour only got a majority of five seats. In 1951 the Conservatives won a majority of 16 despite winning over 200,000 less votes than Labour, and with Labour winning the most votes that they have ever won, or indeed that any party had ever won until 1992.

That's right, the one election that Winston Churchill ever won against Attlee, he still won while losing the popular vote. In that sense I think it really wouldn't have taken much for 1950, and hence the rest of the 1950s in Britain, to have gone differently.
 
It's good to remember just how bizarre both the 1950 and 1951 elections were OTL. Despite polling more than one and a half million more votes than the Conservatives and their allies, and receiving more votes than they had in 1945, Labour only got a majority of five seats. In 1951 the Conservatives won a majority of 16 despite winning over 200,000 less votes than Labour, and with Labour winning the most votes that they have ever won, or indeed that any party had ever won until 1992.

That's right, the one election that Winston Churchill ever won against Attlee, he still won while losing the popular vote. In that sense I think it really wouldn't have taken much for 1950, and hence the rest of the 1950s in Britain, to have gone differently.

And the fact that it's John Major who holds that particular record as a party leader is slightly bizarre in itself!
 
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