1951 United Kingdom general election

1951 United Kingdom general election

← 1950 25 October 1951 1955 →
← outgoing members elected members →
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 until it was surpassed by the Conservative Party in 1992 and again in 2019 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 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]