Updated
HISTORIC UK GENERAL ELECTION · 25 OCTOBER 1951
1951 UK general election results
More votes, fewer seats
Largest party321 seats
Labour recorded its highest vote share, yet the Conservatives won the Commons and Churchill returned to office.
What happened?
Conservative grouping was the largest grouping with 321 seats, ahead of Labour on 295. 16-seat government majority.
Who formed the government?
Winston Churchill led the conservative majority government after the election.
Was it a shock?
The result remains a classic first-past-the-post anomaly: the party with fewer votes formed the government.
CONTEXT
Britain before the vote
Attlee called a second election after Labour's 1950 majority had fallen to five. The two largest parties together won almost 97% of votes.
RESULT
What the election changed
Labour won 48.8%, its highest general-election vote share, but the Conservatives' votes translated more efficiently into 321 seats against Labour's 295.
SWING
1.0-point swing to Conservative
Two-party swing from 1950, even though both parties increased their share as the Liberal vote contracted.
BOUNDARIES
How to read the seat total
The 1950-51 constituency set is directly comparable across those two elections, though four Northern Ireland MPs were returned unopposed in 1951.
SOURCES