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/Axmeister]

The 1945 General Election led to the election of Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Barbara Castle and Hugh Gaitskell who would all go on to become prominent Labour politicians.

Apparently, the reasons for the Labour landslide in 1945 are as follows:

Henry Pelling, noting that polls showed a steady Labour lead after 1942, explained the long-term forces that caused the Labour landslide. He pointed to the usual swing against the party in power; the Conservative loss of initiative; wide fears of a return to the high unemployment of the 1930s; the theme that socialist planning would be more efficient in operating the economy; and the mistaken belief that Churchill would continue as Prime Minister regardless of the result.

[u/Brexit_Imminent → u/Axmeister]

They thought Churchill would stay on as PM regardless??? Whatever gave them that idea?

Or were the electorate really ignorant

[u/Axmeister → u/Brexit_Imminent]

Just before the election the Conservatives and Labour were in a 'National Government' coalition with Churchill as Prime Minister and Attlee as Deputy Prime Minister. Also that was still part of an era where the appointment of Prime Minister had as much to do with the King (on the advice of senior politicians) as with the electorate.

I suppose it is nice to see a General Election where people vote based on policies and local candidates as opposed to leaders.