A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday, 8 October 1959. The Conservative Party under the leadership of incumbent prime minister Harold Macmillan won a landslide victory with a majority of 100 seats. This was their third election victory in a row.

The Conservatives won the largest number of votes in Scotland, but narrowly failed to win the most seats in that country. They have not made either achievement ever since. Both Jeremy Thorpe, a future Liberal leader, and Margaret Thatcher, a future Conservative leader and eventually Prime Minister, first entered the House of Commons following this election.

Background

Following the Suez Crisis in 1956, Anthony Eden, the Conservative Prime Minister, became unpopular. He resigned early in 1957, and was succeeded by Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan. At that point, the Labour Party, whose leader Hugh Gaitskell had succeeded Clement Attlee following the 1955 general election, enjoyed large leads in opinion polls over the Conservative Party, and it looked as if Labour would win.

The Liberal Party also had a new leader, Jo Grimond, so all three parties contested the election with a new leader at the helm.

Campaign

All the three main parties had changed leadership since the previous election. The Conservatives fought under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it" and were boosted by a pre-election economic boom. Macmillan very effectively "summed up" the mood of the British public when he said that most of the people had "never had it so good". Macmillan was very popular, and was described as a politician of the centre ground; in the 1930s he had represented a constituency in northern England (Stockton-on-Tees), which had experienced large-scale unemployment and poverty during the Great Depression. The first week of polling put the Conservatives ahead of Labour by over 5%, but this narrowed as the campaign continued. The Labour Party fought a generally effective campaign, with television broadcasts masterminded by Tony Benn under the umbrella of their manifesto entitled Britain Belongs to You, which accused the Conservatives of complacency over the growing gap between rich and poor. Labour's manifesto pledged to reverse reductions in welfare benefits, pensions, and National Health Service expenditure; renationalize the steel industry and road haulage; reform secondary education; expand consumer protections; and create the Welsh Office. It notably promised not to fully nationalise industries which were performing efficiently and profitably, pivoting away from its earlier emphasis on socialism towards welfare capitalism. Hugh Gaitskell made a mistake in declaring that a Labour government would not raise taxes if it came to power—even though the Labour manifesto contained pledges to increase spending; especially to increase pensions. Although Gaitskell argued revenue would be provided by economic growth, this led some voters to doubt Labour's spending plans, and is cited as a key reason for their defeat. Many of both the Labour Party's supporters and opponents, including Prime Minister Macmillan himself, also blamed the Gaitskellite leadership for spending more time preparing to form a government with the assumption that they would win the election than actually campaigning or offering criticism of the Conservative Party's leadership. Political scientists Mark Abrams and Richard Rose blamed Labour's electoral losses from 1959 onwards on an "embourgeoisement" in which British voters identified increasingly with the middle class, leaving Labour's appeals to the working class less effective. Another key factor was the decline of support of younger voters after 1955, although older voters over the age of 65 increased support for the party in 1959 because of its pledges to expand pensions.

center|300px

|-

|+ style="caption-side: bottom; font-weight:normal" |All parties shown.

|}

{| class="wikitable" style="width:70%"

|Government's new majority

|100

|-

|Total votes cast

|27,862,652

|-

|Turnout

|78.7%

|}

Votes summary

Seat summary

Transfers of seats

  • All comparisons are with the 1955 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 1959. Such circumstances are marked with a †.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin:1em"

!colspan=2|From

!colspan=2|To

!No.

!class=unsortable|Seats

|-

| rowspan=3 style="color:inherit;background:" |

| rowspan=3 |

| (HOLD)

|colspan=2|many

|-

|

|1

|Bristol North East

|-

|

|25

|Acton, Barons Court, Birmingham All Saints, Birmingham Sparkbrook, Birmingham Yardley, Brierley Hill, Bristol North West, Clapham, Cleveland, Coventry South, Derbyshire SE, The Hartlepools, Holborn and St Pancras South, Keighley, Lowestoft, Meriden, Newcastle upon Tyne East, Nottingham West, Reading, Rochester and Chatham, Rugby, Swansea West, Uxbridge, Wellingborough, Willesden East

|-

|

|

|2

|Mid Ulster<sup>1</sup>, Fermanagh and South Tyrone<sup>2</sup>

|-

| rowspan=2 style="color:inherit;background:" |

| rowspan=2|

|

|1

|Carmarthen†

|-

| (HOLD)

|5

|Bolton West, Cardiganshire, Huddersfield West, Montgomeryshire, Orkney and Shetland

|-

| rowspan=2 style="color:inherit;background:" |

| rowspan=2|

| (HOLD)

|16

|Angus North and Mearns, Angus South, Bedfordshire South, Bradford North, Bradford West, Dumfriesshire, Fife East, Harwich, Holland with Boston, Huntingdonshire, Luton, Norfolk Central, Plymouth Devonport, Renfrewshire West, Ross and Cromarty, St Ives

|-

|

|3

|Denbigh, Newcastle upon Tyne North†, Torrington<sup>3</sup>

|-

| rowspan=4 style="color:inherit;background:" |

| rowspan=4|

|

|6

|Ayrshire Central, Glasgow Craigton, Glasgow Scotstoun, Lanark, Oldham East, Rochdale†

|-

|

|1

|Devon North

|-

| (HOLD)

|colspan=2|many

|-

|

|1

|Caithness and Sutherland*

|-

|

|

|10

|North Antrim, South Antrim, Armagh, Belfast East, Belfast North, Belfast South, Belfast West, Down North, Down South, Londonderry

|-

|

|

|1

|Cirencester and Tewkesbury

|}

:<sup>1</sup> Sinn Féin winner in 1955 overturned on petition. The second-placed Ulster Unionist candidate was also overturned, by resolution of the House; eventually the 1956 by-election was held, which returned an Independent Unionist. This candidate later defected to the Ulster Unionists.

:<sup>2</sup> Sinn Féin winner in 1955 overturned on petition for criminal conviction. The second-placed candidate, an Ulster Unionist, was awarded the seat. He retained it in 1959.

:<sup>3</sup> Seat had been won by the Liberals in a 1958 by-election.

See also

  • List of MPs elected in the 1959 United Kingdom general election
  • List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1959–1964)
  • List of MPs for constituencies in Wales (1959–1964)
  • 1959 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
  • 1959 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
  • 1959 United Kingdom general election in England

Notes

References

Sources

  • the standard scholarly study.
  • United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979

Manifestos

  • The Next Five Years, 1959 Conservative Party manifesto
  • Britain Belongs to You: The Labour Party's Policy for Consideration by the British People, 1959 Labour Party manifesto
  • People Count, 1959 Liberal Party manifesto