The 1951 General Election was one of the closest in the British history. It marked the third encounter between wartime coalition partners Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, the first in 1945 had led to the first Labour majority Government, the second had also been a Labour victory, but a far narrower one with Labours' huge majority being reduced to just four seats. In an attempt to increase his majority, partly based on the concerns of the King. Despite winning the popular vote, the Conservative party managed to win a small majority in the Commons. This would lead to an era of Conservative domination in British politics, one which would only end in 1964.
But what would have happened if the Conservatives had fallen a few seats short, with Labour holding on to seven or eight of the twenty seats they lost, and the Liberal party holding on to the two seats they lost to the Conservatives? Would Churchill have attempted to run a minority Government similar to the twenties, would Attlee? Or could the Liberals be persuaded by either party to form a coalition?