Why did Labour win the 1964 general election?

The 1964 labour victory over the Tories poses many questions to posterity.  Harold Wilson’s Labour managed to closely defeat the Tories who dominated for 13 years prior.  The reasons for this dramatic shift are evident as negative attitudes to the Tories as an obsolete self indulgent elite, positive perceptions of Labour as a dynamic, unified political force and the Liberal revival of the 1960s all combined to oust the Tory government.  The Liberal revival was undoubtedly the principal agent for this change. 

The electorate’s perception of the Tories changed drastically from their success in 1959.  They were once regarded as the expert managers of the economy and were accredited with the relentlessly rising living standards.  The Tory campaigners tied their party to the fortunes of the economy, a strategy that brought them three successive electoral victories, but when the economy plummeted, Tory votes also plummeted.  There was a balance of trade deficit, unemployment was rising and had reached 800,000  by 1963 and there was increasing industrial action.  Tory attempts to resolve these issues were ineffective, with measures such as a National Economic Development Council failing to influence the situation.  It appeared that the Tories had run out of ideas, and were no longer able to play their trump card by warning the electorate to not ‘let Labour ruin it’, as it was the Tories were failing, as their absence of a coherent, long term economic plan was exposed by stagflation.  Their failure to solve these economic issues, and their pursuit of a ‘stop-go’ policy was condemned by Labour as ‘thirteen wasted years’.

To exacerbate this popular view of the Tories as a spent force, they appeared out of touch with a modern, democratic society.  The Tories were implicated in a number of sex scandals, such as the Profumo Affair, which asked questions of the government’s fitness to lead as they appeared out of touch with the morals of the era.  The party also appeared increasingly elitist and un-democratic with the appointment of Douglas-Home as leader. He alienated much of the electorate, as he was a 60 year old Scottish aristocrat who appeared out of touch with the increasingly liberal British society.  he was selected to govern the country by a network of Eton old-boys, a process called sounding out which was ridiculous in a democratic age.  This suggested that the Tories had not changed their image of an old-fashioned, self-indulgent elite.  This was enhanced by the new perception of Labour as a dynamic, revitalised party which could solve Britain’s problems better than the increasingly stale Tory administration.  While this factor did not directly benefit Labour, it unquestionably helped to bring about Wilson’s triumph as it did not win the Tories anymore crucial support and it drove the Liberal revival, which was the immediate and most important reason for the ousting of the Tories.  Many of the dissatisfied Tory voters were not prepared to vote for the Labour, so registered their discontent by voting for the revitalised Liberals, thus depriving the Tories of votes, while not influencing the fortunes of Labour.

The increasingly positive view of Labour under Harold Wilson was of limited significance to electoral victory.  Many still distrusted Labour as it was associated with trade unions, striking and unpopular Socialist policies like nationalisation.  They were also seen as being weak on immigration, an important issue among working class voters in Labour heartlands.  The length of Labour’s spell in the political wilderness also raised fears that the party lacked the experience to effectively lead Britain.  The party was still heavily divided on issues such as unilateral disarmament, Europe and Socialist polices.  However, the public perception of labour did not feature these real issues as Wilson was very effective at glossing over these concerns and giving the impression of unity.  Wilson portrayed the party as being the force for faster growth, continuing Tory successes such as housing and for creating a new, more progressive Britain.  However, this new image was of minimal significance, as illustrated by the statistics of the 1959 election: Labour got 10,000 less votes in 1964 than they grossed in 1959.  Therefore, the voters were not overly inspired to vote in a new Labour under Wilson, the new image simply resulted them in losing less votes than the Tories.  As a result, this is a very minor factor that did not directly affect the dominant reason for the election of the new Labour government: the decline of Tory support. 

The primary factor for the Labour victory in 1964 was the Liberal revival.  This was the consequence of the Conservative decline, as the unpopularity of Douglas-Home’s administration meant that many voters swung to the ascendant Liberal party.  Many middle-class people were dissatisfied with the stagnant economy presided over by the Tories, and wanted to vent their discontent, but were unprepared to vote for Labour.  The growing demand for a third option to vote for coincided with the revival of the Liberal Party.  Hitherto 1964, the Liberals were in financial difficulty and were unable to contest many seats, meaning that many Liberal supporters turned to the Tories.  However, in 1964, the party had greater financial prowess and could compete for many more seats than in the prior two elections.  Although they only won three more seats than in 1959, they polled 1.5 million more votes.  The majority of these extra votes were taken from the Tories, and very few came from Labour supporters.  Although the Labour vote fell from 1959, they managed to take more seats from the Tories as Conservative voters defected to the Liberals.  This is unquestionably the most important factor in Labour victory.  This is because the election was not a labour win as such, but a question of which party could lose the least votes.  Douglas-Home’s Tories lost the most support because of the Liberal revival, and not because the rejuvenated Labour party directly taking Conservative votes.  The election was so closely fought: if 900 voters in eight key constituencies voted Conservative instead of labour, the Tories would’ve remained in power, that the 1.5 million defectors to the Liberals was sufficient to oust the Tory government, by ensuring that Labour lost by less than the Conservatives. 

To conclude, the result of the election came about due to the liberal revival depriving the declining Tories of crucial support rather than Wilson’s labour winning the election with overwhelming popularity.  The decline in support for the Tory party would have been inconsequential without the ability of the Liberals to contest more seats, as many of the defectors were middle class, and were unprepared to vote for Labour.  While the new perception of Labour under Wilson is often accredited as being the reason for his electoral victory, however, the statistics for the 1959 and 1964 elections demonstrate that Labour’s support had not increased during this period, it had in actuality fallen by 10,000 votes.  Therefore, the election was not a Labour victory as such, but was a matter of Labour losing less support than the Tories, as they suffered the brunt of the Liberal drain on votes.