1964 General Election

Question 1

What division in the labour party was there in 1959?

Answer 1

• Gaitskell anti-nationalisation as primary goal

- left wing activists and trade unions primary goal was pro-nationalisation

Question 2

What were background developments from 1960 to the general election in 1964?

Answer 2

• 1960: unilateralists used block trade union vote at party conference to impose unilateralism on Gaitskell. He replied “We will fight, and fight, and fight again to save the part we love”.
• 1961: Gaitskell successfully fought to overturn unilateralism at party conference, Labour and Liberal ratings in the polls rose
• 1963: Gaitskell suddenly died, Harold Wilson became leader

Question 3

How did Wilson becoming the leader of the Labour Party win them the election?

Answer 3

• develop new image
• bridge the gap between right and left. Adopted policies that avoided language of left-right faultline. E.g. “nationalisation”
• Wilson was a very good speaker and effective party manager
• Wilson targeted the floating voter
• Wilson spoke of the “white heat of technology” and “jet age” deliberately reflecting Home without saying it. Successfully addressed the UK’s evident weakness. New message of modernising.
• Slogans like “Let’s go with Labour”
• Avoided off putting ideological arguments and commitments

Question 4

What scandals leading up to the general election stopped Conservatives winning?

Answer 4

• Vassal Inquiry 1963
• Kim Philby 1963
• Argyll Divorce case 1963
• Profumo Affair, March 1963

Question 5

What was the vassal inquiry in 1963?

Answer 5

• government had to investigate civil servant John Vassal who had been caught spying for Soviet Union in 1963.
• Rumours that senior admiralty figures tried to protect him
• no evidence but talk of cover ups suggested the government was not in control of departments.

Question 6

What was the Kim Philby scandal in 1963?

Answer 6

• Kim Philby senior official in foreign office for decades has been passing information to USSR.
• Also recruited agents and ran a spy network.
• Philby fled to Moscow until his death in 1988.
• Macmillan’s government took blame for security services failing to spot the traitor.

Question 7

What was the Argyll Divorce Case 1963?

Answer 7

• Duke of Argyll sued wife Margaret for divorce on grounds of adultery.
• He provided details including men with whom she’d had group sex.
• The list was said to include two government ministers, one of whom appeared in a poronographic photo in court.
• In granting divorce the judge said there was no doubt the duchess had engaged in “disgusting sexual practices”.

Question 8

What was the Profumo Affair?

Answer 8

• minister for war John Profumo had had a liaison with model Christine Keeler who was having an affair with a member of the Soviet embassy.
• Revealed later Profumo had met Keeler at Cliveden, a famous country house in Buckinghamshire used as a high class brothel by Dr Stephen Ward, an osteopath who used his contacts to procure girls for upper class men.
• Ward put on trial for living off immoral earnings but committed suicide.

Question 9

Why was the Profumo Affair so damaging to Conservative’s image?

Answer 9

• Risk to national security.
• In March 1963 Profumo declared it was false only to admit 3 months later he had lied to Parliament. He resigned.
• Conservative party was damaged by the association as many had Ward as a doctor.
• Macmillan’s readiness to believe Profumo suggested the PM was losing political power/grip.
• Profumo affair invaded the public sphere and reflected on the character of British public institutions and government.

Question 10

How did socio-economic factors win Labour the election in 1964?

Answer 10

• Gaitskell’s death in 1963, “best Prime Minister Britain never had”
• The attention the media put on the Profumo affair. The Times used the title: “It is a moral issue”.
• Labour radical Tony Benn successfully campaigned for the Peerage Act which became law in 1963, allowing to renounce peerage. He dropped his title of Lord Stansgate to remain in the House of Commons.

Question 11

Why was Butler considered the best person to take over Macmillan’s leadership but didn’t?

Answer 11

• Butler’s work as home then foreign secretary under Macmillan appeared successful.
• In 1962 he had been one of the few leading cabinet ministers to survive the ‘Night of the Long Knives’.
• He was raised to deputy PM, but in 1963 Butler did little to claim leadership.
• Macmillan also disliked Butler and didn’t want him to be leader.

Question 12

How did foreign secretary Home become eligible for leader?

Answer 12

• needed to be a member of the House of Commons he renounced peerage to become Sir Alec-Douglas Home.
• Hailsham did the same.

Question 13

How did Macmillan ensure Home would become leader?

Answer 13

• Macmillan purposefully delayed announcing the date of resignation so Alec Douglas Hume had time to press candidacy.
• Macmillan in a letter of resignation to the Queen recommended Douglas Home to be next PM.
• Indicates how class and ‘old boy network’ was still at force. 9 of those involved in seeing Home become PM were old Etonians.
• On 16th October 1963 Douglas Home became leader of Conservative party.

Question 14

What backlash followed Home’s establishment as PM and how was it solved?

Answer 14

• Enoch Powell and Iain Macleod declared they wouldn’t serve under Home, whose leadership they believed would give the electorate the wrong image of Conservatism.
• After the 1964 election the party adopted an open democratic system involving balloting of Conservative MPs.