Search results
Feb 17, 2011 · The British General Election of 1945 by RB McCallum and Alison Readman (Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1947) The Age of Churchill and Eden 1940-1957 by John Ramsden (Longman, 1995)
- May 1945
- July 1945
- A Watershed Election
- How Churchill Lost
- The Conservative Campaign
- The Labour Alternative
- The Tories’ Poor Image
- “The Bug Seems to Have Caught My Truculence”
- Epilogue
- The Author
The end of World War II in 1945 turned Winston Churchill into the world’s most eminent statesman. He was feted and celebrated everywhere he went and had an approval rating of 83%. Yet three months later, he suffered a humiliating election defeat. Churchill ‘s electoral fate demonstrates that democratic elections are not won on past achievements and...
Polling day was 5 July 1945, but ballot counting was delayed until the 26th to count votes from soldiers abroad. Churchill courteously invited Labour leader Clement Attleeto the “Big Three” conference in Potsdam. The meeting was interrupted so that they could go home, wait for the outcome, and form a new government. Soviet dictator Stalin assumed t...
The magnitude of the loss was historic. The Labour Party received 47.7% of the vote compared to the Conservatives’ 36.2% and the Liberal Party’s 9%. The electoral swing from the Tory to Labour was 10.7% from the previous election. To this day it stands as the largest swing in British postwar politics. Churchill’s immense personal popularity saw him...
Until the last few days before the vote was held, Churchill and much of the country had been firmly convinced that he and his party would be returned to power with a decent majority. Although his party had conceived of a National Health Service and a vast housebuilding program, it lacked the sweeping fervor of the socialist reformers. Churchill’s o...
The six-week election campaign in May-July 1945 largely focused on the future of the country. The progressive reforms proposed by Labour were highly popular. The Conservative program was much more vague, and focused on Churchill’s leadership. But after six devastating years of war, voters were more interested in how to bring about a bright future t...
The Labour Party’s platform for Britain’s future had been carefully worked out. It promised government-supported full employment, a free National Health Service. The Labour manifesto included nationalizing key industries: steel, coal, electricity, railways, the Bank of England, civil aviation and road transport. These were new and bright ideas in t...
Despite the nation’s tremendous affection for him, Churchill was elderly, with an elite background and, Britons thought, a paternalistic Victorian. Many saw him as out of touch with the modern world. His emphatic belief in Empire, and Britain’s responsibility thereto, sounded out of sync in the new era. India’s almost inevitable independence distre...
Churchill took the 1945 defeat badly. He was just short of his 71st birthday, exhausted from the war, in dubious health. Demoralized, he took a long holiday in France, where he consoled himself with memorable oil paintings. At home he painted, laid bricks, and supervised the team helping with his war memoirs. He was sad, but never idle. When the Ki...
Taking these elements into account, it was little wonder that Churchill and the Tories lost the 1945 election. It was equally predictable that winning a general election would be his obsession. Churchill narrowly lost the 1950 contest (Labour’s majority was reduced to six), but again he managed to sidestep retirement. Just over a year later, with t...
Klaus Larres, author of Churchill’s Cold War, is the Richard M. Krasno Distinguished Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the former holder of the Henry Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Dr. Larres is a Disti...
Jan 21, 2015 · Worst of all, when the votes were counted after the general election of July 1945, Churchill’s Conservative Party took a crushing defeat at the hands of Clement Attlee’s Labour Party. Opinion ...
Jul 27, 2020 · In 1945, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Churchill and his Conservative Party would win the next general election. No election had taken place during the war. The members of the British ...
Wars often bring political change. But what made the events of July 1945 so remarkable was that the government toppled had led its country to victory and was headed by an immensely popular and seemingly untouchable leader. When Winston Churchill’s Conservatives were defeated by a landslide, it ushered in a new era and a new Labour government.
- History Hit
Apr 18, 2017 · 1. The hangover of pre-war ‘appeasement’. Despite Britain’s victory over Nazism under a Conservative-led coalition, the post-war Conservative Party was held to account for its pre-war policy of ‘appeasement’ towards Britain’s fascist enemies. Guilty Men, a hugely popular book published in 1940, accused the pre-Churchillian majority ...
People also ask
Did Churchill win a general election in 1945?
Did Winston Churchill win the Second World War?
Why did Winston Churchill join the Conservatives?
What happened to Winston Churchill after WW2?
Who was Winston Churchill?
Why did Churchill leave the government?
Feb 17, 2011 · Churchill Loses General Election. By Helen Cleary. Last updated 2011-02-17. Dates: 26 July 1945. Location: Britain. Outcome: A Labour landslide in the general election, with Labour leader Clement ...
