These elections mattered, overturning Labour’s landslide victory of 1945 and ushering in 13 years of Conservative government. To understand why this happened, we first need to understand exactly what happened. The devil is very much in the detail. Let’s begin with the 1945 landslide (click on the link to view the result in full).
And with the electoral map of the same result.
There are perhaps two points to note about the 1945 result. The first is that the Conservative vote was not wiped out: the gap between Labour and the Conservatives was enough to give Labour a landslide, they still polled just shy of 40% of the popular vote. The second is the fact that Liberals polled 9% of that popular vote.
The 1950 result saw Labour’s landslide majority all but wiped out (again, click on the link).
In the first place, on a record 84% turnout, we can see…
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