Keeping the British Liberal Party flag flying high

The number of MPs from each party from the other nations of the UK were as follows [1955 general election]:
Northern Ireland:
Ulster Unionist: 13 [10]
Progressive: 3 [1]
Northern Ireland Labour: 1 [1]
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Total: 17 [12]
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Scotland:
Conservative: 34 [33]
Socialist Labour: 18 [21]
Liberal: 15 [18]
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Total: 67 [72]
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Wales:
Socialist Labour: 17 [19]
Liberal: 12 [15]
Conservative: 7 [3]
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Total: 36 [37]
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Here is a breakdown of the gains and losses for each party:
Conservative and Unionist:
Gains from Liberal: 105
Gains from Socialist Labour: 6
New seats: 36
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Total 147
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Losses to Liberal: 10
Losses to Socialist Labour: 4
Seats abolished: 28
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Total: 42
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Net gains: 105

Liberal:
Gains from Conservative: 10
Gains from Socialist Labour: 4
New seats: 12
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Total: 26
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Losses to Conservative: 105
Losses to Socialist Labour: 21
Seats abolished: 19
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Total: 145
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Net losses: 118

Socialist Labour:
Gains from Conservative: 4
Gains from Liberal: 21
New seats: 11
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Total: 36
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Losses to Conservative: 6
Losses to Liberal: 4
Seats abolished: 10
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Total: 20
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Net gains: 2.

In Northern Ireland the Progressive Party won two new seats and the Northern Ireland Labour Party won one new seat, and one of their seats was abolished.
 
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Here is the cabinet appointed by John Profumo in the evening of 3 June 1960 and the weekend of 4 and 5 June.

Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury: John Profumo
Lord Chancellor: Viscount Kilmuir [Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe]
Lord President of the Council and Leader of the Senate: Mrs Thelma Cazalet-Keir
Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons: Richard Austen Butler
Chancellor of the Exchequer: John Boyd-Carpenter
Foreign Secretary: Lord Dunglass [1]
Home Secretary: Quintin Hogg
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: John Hare
Colonial Secretary: Richard Law
Commonwealth Relations Secretary: Reginald Maudling
Defence Secretary: Ronald Cartland
Minister of Education and Science: Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith
Minister of Housing and Local Government: Hugh Molson
Minister of Health: Duncan Sandys
Minister of Labour: Joseph Godber
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: Robert Carr
Minister of Power: Anthony Barber
Secretary of State for Scotland: Lady Tweedsmuir [2]
President of the Board of Trade: Iain Macleod
Minister of Transport: John Maclay
Secretary of State for Wales: Nigel Birch.

[1] Dunglass was a member of the House of Commons

[2] Tweedsmuir was a member of the House of Commons.
 
As Ronald Cartland has survived this TL and so has Bernays, you might want to think about an enterprising and air-minded young(ish) barrister called Roger Bushell as a future War or Air Minister for the Liberals. No idea of his political leanings OTL but he was a bright and enterprising fellow.
 
As Ronald Cartland has survived this TL and so has Bernays, you might want to think about an enterprising and air-minded young(ish) barrister called Roger Bushell as a future War or Air Minister for the Liberals. No idea of his political leanings OTL but he was a bright and enterprising fellow.

Thank you for that tip. I hadn't heard of Roger Bushell and I'll look him up.
 
I hadn't heard of Roger Bushell and I'll look him up.
He masterminded the Great Escape OTL and was one of the escapees shot afterwards. He was so dynamic and innovative and good at working with officers from foreign nations that I think we would have heard more of him in a TL where either there was no WW2 or he survived the war.
 
Roger Bushell was Liberal MP for Torrington from 1950. He was Under-Secretary of State for Air from September 1959 to June 1960.

Among the junior ministers appointed by John Profumo were the following:
First Lord of the Admiralty: Senator Lord Peter Carrington
Secretary of State for Air: Hugh Fraser
Minister of Overseas Devlopment: Christopher Soames
Minister of Pensions and National Insurance: Ernest Marples
Postmaster-General: Harold Watkinson
Secretary of State for War: Julian Amery
Attorney-General: Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller
Solicitor-General: Sir David Renton
Financial Secretary to the Treasury: Peter Thorneycroft
Minister of State at the Home Office for Northern Ireland [Northern Ireland Minister]: Lawrence Orr
Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office: Enoch Powell
Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Housing and Local Government: Sir Keith Joseph.
 
Much of the comment on the ministers in the new government focused on Nigel Birch [the Welsh Secretary] and Lawrence Orr [the Northern Ireland Minister]. Birch was criticised for not being a Welsh speaker, and Orr for being the Imperial Grand Master of the Orange Order. It was also commented that Julian Amery [the Secretary of State for War] was the younger son of Leopold Amery, a one time Conservative cabinet minister, and the younger brother of John Amery who was killed fighting for the Nazis in Lithuania on 12 June 1941.

Plaid Cymru did moderately well in the general election. They increased their percentage of the Welsh vote from 11.7% in 1955 to 13.8%. They contested 27 seats, up from 25, and won eight second places, the same number as before. Their best result was in Caernarvon where their leader, Gwynfor Evans, came second and polled 24.2% of the vote.

The Scottish Nationalist Party [SNP] did considerably worse. Because of the split between left-wingers and right-wingers they put up only 11 candidates compared to 21 in 1955. Their percentage of the Scottish vote fell from 4.2% to 2.6%.
 
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The SNP came second in two constituencies. Their best result was in the Tory seat of Perth and East Perthshire where their leader Robert McIntyre came second with 23.4%.

There were acres of comment and analysis of the general election in the newspapers in the weekend of 4th and 5th June 1960. There was a great deal of speculation on whether Megan Lloyd George would resign as Liberal leader. Aline Mackinnon, the former minister of Housing and Local Government wrote an article for The Observer in which she said that she did not want to become leader, but the next leader should be elected by party members, and not only by MPs as they have been.

Parliament assembled on Tuesday 14th June. The following afternoon Megan Lloyd George addressed a meeting of Liberal MPs and Senators. She told them that she would resign as party leader when a new leader has been elected. She proposed that the next leader should be elected by party members from candidates chosen by MPs.
 
The National Liberal Federation [NLF] met on 16 June 1960 and decided the procedure for election of the party leader. Candidates for leader must be a Liberal MP and nominated by at least 20 percent of his or her colleagues, that is by 34 Liberal MPs. Nominations would close at noon on Tuesday 28 June. Then voting would be open to party members who had paid their subscriptions and had joined before 17 June 1960. Voting for leader would be by Single Transferable Vote. Ballot papers would be posted to members in July, and completed ballots must be received at the NLF no later than 3pm on Wednesday 31 August 1960. The result would be announced at a special Liberal Party Conference in London on Saturday 3 September 1960.
 
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The National Liberal Federation [NLF] met on 16 June 1960 and decided the procedure for election of the party leader. Candidates for leader must be a Liberal MP and nominated by at least 20 percent of his or her colleagues, that is by 34 Liberal MPs. Nominations would close at noon on Tuesday 28 June. Then voting would be open to party members who had paid their subscriptions and had joined before 17 June 1960. Voting for leader would be by Single Transferable Vote. Ballot papers would be posted to members in July, and completed ballots must be received at the NLF no later than 3pm on Wednesday 31 August 1960. The result would be announced the next day at the National Liberal Club.
hmm a single post election can not be held by STV, as there is no surplus to transfer. The election would be by AV
 
When nominations for Liberal Party leader closed at noon on 28 June, the number of nominations received by each candidate was as follows:
Roger Fulford: 66
Honor Balfour: 47
Ivor Davies: 38
Richard Wainwright: 14.
Therefore Fulford, Balfour and Davies went forward for election by party members.

Roger Fulford was born on 24 November 1902. [1] He was elected Liberal MP for Loughborough in October 1940. He served in Liberal or Liberal led governments as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade from September 1941 to July 1942; Minister of Education July 1942 to March 1945; Minister of Fuel and Power March 1945 to May 1946; Minister of Health October 1950 to October 1955; Minister of Housing and Local Government October 1955 to February 1958; Defence Secretary February 1958 to September 1959; Foreign Secretary September 1959 to June 1960.

Honor Balfour was born on 14 August 1912. [2] She was not related to Arthur Balfour, the Conservative Prime Minister. She was elected Liberal MP for Rochdale in June 1941. She was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health March 1945 to May 1946; Minister of Agriculture October 1950 to October 1955; Minister of Education October 1955 to September 1959; President of the Board of Trade September 1959 to June 1960.

Ivor Davies was born 12 August 1915. [3] He was elected Liberal MP for Aberdeenshire West in May 1946. He was Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office from October 1955 to February 1958; Minister of State at the Foreign Office February 1958 to September 1959; Colonial Secretary September 1959 to June 1960.

[1] Here is his entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fulford

[2] Here is an informative article about her: http://liberalhistory.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/78_Langley_Honor_Balfour.pdf.

[3] Here is his entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Davies, with an unflattering photo of him.
 
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When the House of Commons met after the general election they needed to elect a new Speaker. Sir Charles MacAndrew who had been the Speaker retired from the House of Commons at the general election. He was the Conservative member for Ayrshire North and Bute had been Speaker since October 1950. After Labour and Conservative Speakers since 1928 it was felt that it was the turn of a Liberal to be Speaker. So MPs chose Roderick Bowen [Cardiganshire, Liberal] as the Speaker. This meant the government's majority increased from 31 to 32.

On Tuesday 23 June 1960 MPs crowded into the Senate to hear the King's Speech, which set out the government's legislative programme for the coming parliamentary session which would run until October 1961. A controversial bill proposed was a Rent Bill which ended rent control on private dwellings.
 
Fascinating trio of Liberal leadership candidates. Honor Balfour sounds like a bit of a partisan ideologue who would make some good incendiary speeches as opposition leader to rally the base. The others might work more to reach out to potential swing voters. Just my two cents.
 
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