All 625 seats in the House of Commons 313 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout
82.6%, 1.3%
First party
Second party
Third party
Leader
Winston Churchill
Clement Attlee
Clement Davies
Party
Conservative
Labour
Liberal
Leader since
9 October 1940
25 October 1935
2 August 1945
Leader's seat
Woodford
Walthamstow West
Montgomeryshire
Last election
298 seats, 43.4%
315 seats, 46.1%
9 seats, 9.1%
Seats won
321
295
6
Seat change
23
20
3
Popular vote
13,717,851
13,948,385
730,546
Percentage
48.0%
48.8%
2.5%
Swing
4.6%
2.7%
6.6%
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Composition of the House of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election
Clement Attlee
Labour
Prime Minister after election
Winston Churchill
Conservative
The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held twenty months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats. The Labour government called a snap election for Thursday 25 October 1951 in the hope of increasing its parliamentary majority. However, despite winning the popular vote and achieving both the highest-ever total vote at the time and the highest percentage vote share, Labour won fewer seats than the Conservative Party. That was caused mainly by the collapse of the Liberal vote, which enabled the Conservatives to win seats by default. The record high vote total remained until it was surpassed by the Conservative Party in 1992 and again in 2019.
The election marked the return of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister and the beginning of Labour's 13-year spell in opposition. It was the third and final general election to be held during the reign of King George VI, as he died the following year on 6 February and was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II. It was the last election in which the Conservatives did better in Scotland than in England.
The 1951 election was the second one to be covered on BBC Television. On election night, the results were televised from the BBC Alexandra Palace studio in London. Graham Hutton, David Butler and H. G. Nicholas headed the election night coverage from 10.15pm to 4.00am on the television service. On the following day, television coverage started at 10.00am and continued throughout the day until 5.00pm.[1]
1945 election
MPs
1950 election
MPs
1951 election
MPs
1955 election
MPs
1959 election
MPs
^"The General Election". Radio Times (1458): 50. 19 October 1951.
and 30 Related for: 1951 United Kingdom general election information
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Global Information
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