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United Kingdom general election, 1955

← 1951 26 May 1955 1959 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All 630 seats in the House of Commons 316 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	76.8%, 5.8%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Sir Anthony Eden Clement Attlee Clement Davies Party Conservative Labour Liberal Leader since 7 April 1955 25 October 1935 2 August 1945 Leader's seat Warwick & Leamington Walthamstow West Montgomeryshire Last election 321 seats, 48.0% 295 seats, 48.8% 6 seats, 2.5% Seats won 345 277 6 Seat change 23 18 Popular vote 13,310,891 12,405,254 722,402 Percentage 49.7% 46.4% 2.7% Swing 1.7% 2.4% 0.2%
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Prime Minister before election Sir Anthony Eden Conservative Appointed Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden Conservative

The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election. It resulted in a substantially increased majority of 60 for the Conservative government under new leader and prime minister Sir Anthony Eden against the Labour Party, then in its twentieth year of leadership by Clement Attlee.

This general election has since been described by many as one of the "dullest" post-war elections, because there was little change in the country,^{[clarification needed]} with Labour steadily losing ground owing to infighting between the left (Bevanites) and the right (Gaitskellites). This resulted in an unclear election message from the Labour Party. It was the fifth and last general election fought by Labour leader Clement Attlee, who by this time was 72. Eden had only become leader of the Conservative Party a few weeks before the election, after the retirement of Winston Churchill, but he had long been considered the heir apparent to the Conservative leadership. The Conservatives were hoping to take advantage of the end of food rationing and the good mood created by the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. Eden himself was telegenic, although not a great public speaker, and gradual economic growth benefited the party greatly (BBC News 2005).

The 1955 election remains the last time the Conservative Party won the most seats in Scotland, and was also the last time it won the most Scottish seats of any unionist party until the 2017 election. After 1959, Labour established itself as the dominant party in Scotland at UK general elections, a position it maintained until the rise of the pro-independence Scottish National Party at the 2015 election.

For the first time, television took a prominent role in the campaign; this is the earliest UK general election of which television coverage survives (the 1950 and 1951 election nights were not recorded). Only three hours of the coverage, presented by Richard Dimbleby, was kept; this was rebroadcast on BBC Parliament on the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the date of the election.

On election day, the Daily Mirror had printed the front-page headline "Don't Let The Tories Cheat Our Children", urging its readers to elect Labour on the basis that it had "built a better Britain for us all" (Daily Mirror 2012).

Results

This election was fought on new boundaries, with five seats added to the 625 fought in 1951.

The result showed very little change from 1951, with fewer than 25 seats changing hands and only a small swing from Labour to the Conservatives.

The only real highlight of the night was in Northern Ireland, where Sinn Féin won two seats in a British election for the first time since 1918 (before the partition of Ireland).

The Labour Party suffered at this time from deep divisions, yet for it this election was not the disaster it could have been.

Although little changed, this was a strong victory for the Conservatives, who won the largest share of the vote for a single party in a post-war general election.

The Liberal Party had yet another poor performance, only slightly improving their popular vote total from the previous election, and again winning just six seats. Five of their six seats did not have Conservative challengers, as per local-level agreements to avoid vote-splitting which likely would have thrown the seats to Labour; the only Liberal candidate to be victorious against both Conservative and Labour challengers was Orkney and Shetland MP Jo Grimond. The poor national showing was widely viewed as the death knell for the embattled leadership of Clement Davies, who resigned the following year and was replaced by Grimond.

Future Labour leader Michael Foot lost his seat of Plymouth Devonport at this election; he returned for Ebbw Vale in a 1960 by-election.

Votes summary

Seats summary

Selected declarations

• First declaration: Cheltenham (Con: 24,259, Lab: 16,638; Con hold)


• 
  Prime Minister's seat: Warwick and Leamington (Con: 29,979, Lab: 16,513; Con hold)

Transfers of seats

• All comparisons are with the 1951 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 1955. Such circumstances are marked with a †. The parliament of 1951–55 only saw one by-election where a seat changed hands (Sunderland South), and unusually this was a gain for the party in government.
  
  
  
  

See also

• MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1955

Notes

References

Further reading

• 
  Butler, David E. (1956), The British General Election of 1955, the standard study
  

External links

• United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979

Manifestos

• 
  United for Peace and Progress: The Conservative and Unionist Party's Policy, 1955 Conservative Party manifesto


• 
  Forward With Labour: Labour's Policy for the Consideration of the Nation, 1955 Labour Party manifesto


• 
  Crisis Unresolved, 1955 Liberal Party manifesto