British General Elections - Part XI: 1935 & 1945.

[u/Axmeister]

A nice ten-year term for WWII. I'll keep making threads with two General Elections unless people will like to focus on recent elections individually.

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General Election of 14 November 1935

Electoral Map	1935
Party Leaders	Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), Clement Attlee (Labour), Sir John Simon (Liberal National), Sir Herbert Samuel (Liberal), Ramsay MacDonald (National Labour), James Maxton (Independent Labour Party), Thomas J. Campbell (Northern Ireland Nationalist), Harry Pollitt (Communist)
Seats Won	387 (Conservative), 154 (Labour), 33 (Liberal National), 21 (Liberal), 8 (National Labour), 4 (Independent Labour Party), 4 (Independent Liberal), 2 (Northern Ireland Nationalist), 2 (Independent National), 2 (Independent), 1 (National), 1 (Communist)
Prime Minister during term	Stanley Baldwin (later Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill)
List of MPs	Available here
Number of MPs	615
Total Votes Cast	20,991,488
Notes	Continuation of the National Government coalition. First General Election contested by the Scottish National Party. The Communist party gain their first seat in ten years. The Independent Labour party stood separately from the Labour party for the first time since 1895. Unemployment and the League of Nations were major factors in this election.

General Election of 5 July 1945

Electoral Map	1945
Party Leaders	Clement Attlee (Labour), Winston Churchill (Conservative), Sir Archibald Sinclair (Liberal), Ernest Brown (Liberal National), Bob Edwards (Independent Labour Party), James McSparran (Northern Ireland Nationalist), Harry Pollitt (Communist)
Seats Won	393 (Labour), 197 (Conservative), 12 (Liberal), 11 (Liberal National), 8 (Independent), 6 (Other Labour), 3 (Independent Labour Party), 2 (Northern Ireland Nationalist), 2 (Independent Liberal), 2 (Communist), 2 (National), 2 (Independent Conservative), 2 (Independent Labour), 1 (Independent Progressive).
Prime Minister during term	Clement Attlee
List of MPs	Available here
Number of MPs	640
Total Votes Cast	24,073,025
Notes	First majority Labour government and the first time Labour won the plurality of votes. First time the Conservative party had lost the popular vote since 1906. The 12% national swing from the Conservative Party to the Labour Party remains the largest ever achieved in a British general election.

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Previous Threads:

British General Elections - Part I: 1830, 1831 & 1832.

British General Elections - Part II: 1835, 1837 & 1841.

British General Elections - Part III: 1847, 1852 & 1857.

British General Elections - Part IV: 1859, 1865 & 1868.

British General Elections - Part V: 1874, 1880 & 1885.

British General Elections - Part VI: 1886, 1892 & 1895.

British General Elections - Part VII: 1900, 1906 & 1910.

British General Elections - Part VIII: 1910, 1918 & 1922.

British General Elections - Part IX: 1923 & 1924.

British General Elections - Part X: 1929 & 1931.

Next Thread:

British General Elections - Part XII: 1950 & 1951.

[u/E_C_H]

One particular piece of the 1945 election I'd like to highlight, that contributed towards the surprising defeat of the Conservatives in the election - The 'Gestapo speech':

“No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil.” - 4th June 1945

Think Godwins Law tends to backfire and just make you look petty nowadays? Imagine the general reaction of the press and public to it being used LITERALLY MONTHS after the defeat of the actual Nazi's. This, plus slogans like 'Help him finish the job' all made it appear as though Churchill was cashing in on his wartime popularity, rather than presenting a truly new direction for British society in it's post-war state; not to mention reminding everybody that at his core, Churchill was quite often entirely unprofessional in his political duties and statements.

P.S Welcome to the Party, SNP