Title: How Winston Churchill Lost the 1945 British General Election
Headings: Articles
Articles
How Winston Churchill Lost the 1945 British General Election
May 1945
July 1945
A watershed election
How Churchill lost
1. The Conservative campaign
2. The Labour alternative
3. The Tories’ poor image
“The bug seems to have caught my truculence”
Epilogue
The author

Content: The Conservative campaign was ineffective and poorly thought out. Symbolic of that was Churchill’s first campaign broadcast on June 4th, in which he accused Attlee of harboring dictatorial ambitions. Outrageously to many, Churchill said Labour “would have to fall back on some sort of a Gestapo” to enforce its program. Attlee quietly replied that the speech showed Churchill ill-suited to be a leader in times of peace. 2. The Labour alternative
The Labour Party’s platform for Britain’s future had been carefully worked out. It promised government-supported full employment, a free National Health Service. The Labour manifesto included nationalizing key industries: steel, coal, electricity, railways, the Bank of England, civil aviation and road transport. These were new and bright ideas in the eyes of many voters.