Talk:1951 United Kingdom general election

Untitled
"This was largely because, unlike 1950, not every seat had a Liberal candidate, and those that did tended to be Conservative rather than Labour seats. Hence more Conservative votes were diverted to the Liberals than Labour votes, thus obscuring the true position. In addition (but less significantly) under the first past the post electoral system, the Labour votes translated into increased majorities for MPs in already safe seats, rather than into gaining new seats."

This analysis strikes me as being possibly quite right, but also (i) debatable and (ii) perhaps tending towards POV. I think it certainly needs a source, or it surely qualifies as original research. Any thoughts? 81.178.175.24 (talk) 08:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think the issue attracted that much attention at the time, though Attlee himself blamed the collapse of Liberal candidates in a radio interview.
 * One key factor is that in ten seats the Conservatives couldn't get votes. Four of them were unopposed Conservative returns in Northern Ireland where votes were somewhat static and going by other 1950s elections some 160,000 extra votes could have been added. Three seats in Wales saw them decline to stand against sitting Liberal MPs who were considered sufficiently agreeable to not waste resources against (and one had a marginal over Labour though the other two had rare safe Liberal seats) and again going by other 1950s results 22,000 additional votes could have been found. In another constituency Churchill secured no Conservative candidate against Violet Bonham Carter (due to their personal friendship) and otherwise aother 18,000 votes could have been garnered. And in Bolton and Huddersfield the Conservatives and Liberals had pacts to stand in just one of each town's two seats. Had both parties contested both then the Conservatives could have had an additional 12,000 in Bolton and Labour 2,000 less and probably similar in Huddersfield. Overall this would have made the popular vote figures much tighter, and Labour would have probably had four more seats and the Conservativs one less (they never actually took a Huddersfield seat under the pact). Timrollpickering (talk) 12:49, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

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Is it an accident that Sinn Féin got exactly the same number of votes as in the election of 1950? Is it a mistake? Martinwilke1980 18:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well spotted - they didn't even stand in this election (see for source). Warofdreams talk 00:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is Labour in "poll position" if the Tories actually won? Shouldn't it be Conservative listed first, then Labour? Crowqueen 03:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As with all articles in the series, the parties are listed in order of number of votes. If we used number of seats won, a party contesting a single seat which narrowly won would appear above a party which won a decent vote across the country, without winning any. Warofdreams talk 03:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The vote figures are wrong, labour only polled around 200,000 more votes, not over a million more i think the 1950 figures have become mixed with the 1951 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.163.165.136 (talk) 17:16, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The vote figures are correct, I suspect that you are thinking of figures which combine the Conservative and National Liberal tallies. There are arguments for doing so, but they did remain two separate parties at this date. Warofdreams talk 01:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

349
By my calculation, there's a discrepancy of 349 votes behind the total of all votes listed in the table, and the total given beneath the table as votes cast. I presume a small party is missing?--86.178.142.209 (talk) 18:49, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Unopposed Conservatives
"A factor that almost certainly boosted the margin of Labour's victory in the popular vote, was the unopposed return of four Conservative Party candidates." Either I am missing something, or this makes no sense at all. Cripipper (talk) 15:32, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually there is a reason for it. Because those four candidates were unopposed, no poll was taken in four constituencies that were favourable to the Conservatives. Therefore, the popular vote was skewed ever so slightly. Just to clarify, the unopposed candidates contested it for the Ulster Unionist Party, not the Conservative Party. But back then, the Ulster Unionists took the Conservative whip. Anywikiuser (talk) 17:41, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Election date and upcoming royal tour
I have raised a citation need against the interesting statement that Attlee called this election in response to concern raised by the King about going on the 1952 tour with an unstable government at home. This is not mentioned in the Wikipedia articles on Attlee (which describes concerns he had over the size of his own party's Commons majority) nor that on George VI, which mentions he had his lung removal operation before the election day. The King's serious health issues were given restricted public coverage.Cloptonson (talk) 16:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I have located Denis Judd's biography of George VI (first published 1982 by Michael Joseph, republished 2012 by IB Tauris), page 238, and added this as citation. Judd wrote Attlee confirmed the king's anxiety in his autobiography later.Cloptonson (talk) 14:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Clement Davis image in infobox
The non-free use of File:Clement Davies c1955.jpg was discussed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2016 March 30 and the result was "keep in Clement Davies, remove all other instances." For clarification or to challenge this close please contact the closing administrator per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:57, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Where are the Ulster Unionists
The table of results does not include any Ulster Unionists, but List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1951 includes 12 of them. Where have they gone? DuncanHill (talk) 08:14, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see below the table the self-contradictory statement "All parties shown. Conservative result includes the Ulster Unionists." So not all parties are shewn. DuncanHill (talk) 08:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The UUP are shown separate in the 1950 election article but not thereafter until much later. I don't know if merging them for 1951 is correct or if they should not be separated in 1950. The National Liberals are merged in for 1955 which seems to have no logic for me. Graemp (talk) 08:34, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Liberal Nationals
There are inconsistencies in this article. Were the Liberal Nationals (pale blue) part of the majority government? If so, either the results table should indicate this or the 'composition' diagram shouldn't differentiate them? Crookesmoor (talk) 15:21, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

TV coverage
Surely it's of no more than marginal interest in an article with this subject these days, and you might consider a decicated article on UK TV Election coverage, but if you want to keep the reference here, you might at least remind us that even in October 1951, the broadcast didn't reach anything like the whole of the UK. For example Holme Moss transmitter opened a mere fortnight before the 1951 polling day, and even then the southern edges of its signal area were getting such TV as they could from Sutton Coldfield. like most of us in Cheshire, I followed the results on radio. Very few folk even a train ride from the metropolis had TV then.90.192.193.27 (talk) 08:46, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Wasn't Korean War a factor?
I was long under the impression, shared by relatives old enough to remember that period, that the Korean War contributed to Labour losing the 1951 election, as it broke out after the 1950 election and caused added strains that repercussed on support, such as extended National Service terms for servicemen and the introduction of added taxes and prescription charges to help added defence spending. Also it broke the spell of the Labour slogan 'Vote Conservative and pick up a rifle, vote Labour and reach old age'* that got used to taunt Churchill (often considered a warmonger) when discomfitingly a Labour government found itself needing to field men under arms in Korea as well as ongoing trouble spots like Egypt and Malaya. Was it a major factor?
 * Mentioned in "The True Book of Winston Churchill", published in the early 1950s after he had become honoured during his second premiership (part of the "True Book" series published by British firm (forgot who). Cloptonson (talk) 18:00, 23 October 2022 (UTC)