United Kingdom General Election, 1964
1955 election • MPs |
1959 election • MPs |
1964 election • MPs |
1966 election • MPs |
1970 election • MPs |
The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after the preceding election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had retaken power. Both major parties had changed leaders in 1963: after the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell, Labour chose Harold Wilson (who was then thought of as being on the party's centre-left), and the Conservatives had chosen Alec Douglas-Home (then the Earl of Home) as their new leader after Harold Macmillan announced his resignation (Home shortly after disclaimed his title under the Peerage Act 1963 in order to lead the party from the Commons). Macmillan's government had been increasingly unpopular in the mid-term, and Douglas-Home faced a difficult task in rebuilding the party's popularity. Wilson had begun to try to tie the Labour Party to the growing confidence of Britain in the 1960s, asserting that the "white heat of revolution" would sweep away "restrictive practices... on both sides of industry". This helped him secure victory with a small overall majority of five. In addition, the resurgence of the Liberal Party, which doubled its share of the vote in this election, arguably contributed to the scale of the Conservative defeat as well as to the modest gains of the Labour party.
The election night was broadcast live on the BBC, and was presented by Richard Dimbleby, with Robin Day, Cliff Michelmore and David Butler.
Read more about United Kingdom General Election, 1964: Campaign, National Opinion Poll Summary, Results, Televised Declarations
Famous quotes containing the words united, kingdom and/or general:
“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“How we dwelt in two worlds
the daughters and the mothers
in the kingdom of the sons.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a mans general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (16941773)