1945 – How Churchill won the war, but lost the election

It is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill and nearly seventy years since the 1945 election. Although he is remembered as a highly-successful politician, Churchill in fact failed to win a seat in five of the 21 contests which he fought, and as party leader he never led his party to win the most votes in an election. Despite this, he served as prime minister of three very different governments.

The first was the successful wartime coalition from May 1940 to May 1945. The second was the now almost-forgotten caretaker government, which was in power from May to July 1945 after the other parties withdrew from the coalition in advance of the general election. For thirteen of its members, the 1945 Caretaker Government gave them their only ministerial appointment. They included Ronnie Tree, son of Arthur Tree and Ethel Field, who was appropriately enough appointed as a minister in the Department of Town and Country Planning. One day David Cameron may look back and think that a two-month single-party caretaker government, with a brief reward of office for some of his overlooked MPs, might have been a good idea.

When the votes of the 1945 election were counted in July, Churchill’s Conservative Party had gone down to a crushing defeat at the hands of Clement Attlee’s Labour Party. Should Churchill have been surprised by his defeat in 1945? Not really. Opinion polls were available and had consistently been showing a solid lead for the Labour Party. But how did Churchill manage to lose the 1945 election after leading the allies to victory in the war?

Among the excuses which the Conservatives offered was that the Army Bureau of Current Affairs had indoctrinated service personnel to vote Labour. This excuse was at least plausible, but also probably fairly flimsy. Parties tend to cling on to strange excuses after a poor result. After one by-election in the 1950s the Conservatives blamed the size of the constituency for their lacklustre performance, although presumably it was the same size for their opponents!

In 1945 the Conservatives lost the ‘ground war’. The party was in a weakened state on the ground with a depleted band of agents. The Conservatives, in contrast to the other parties, had stuck rigidly to the spirit and the letter of the wartime electoral truce. They had only held one party conference during the war and had put little effort into policy development and constituency organisation.

Public memory had a bearing on the outcome of the 1945 election. Lloyd George was still considered to be the man who won the First World War, but his record as prime minister after the war was dismal, with broken promises, unemployment, industrial unrest and threats to start another war. The popular conclusion was that good war leaders do not necessarily make good peacetime leaders. In 1945 the Conservatives were also still tarred with the taint of being the ‘Guilty Men’, so-called after a book which had appeared in 1940, blaming the party for the policy of appeasement which had failed to prevent the war.

British society had changed during the war and voters had become less class-bound. Evacuation of urban children to rural areas, service of all classes in the armed forces, and civilians sharing bomb shelters with strangers, had all led to a new degree of social mixing. After the First World War many people had wanted a return to life as it had been. After the second, most people wanted a complete break with the past. The forward-looking 1945 Labour pledge: ‘Let us face the future’ generated more enthusiasm that the Conservatives’ plea to let Churchill ‘finish the job’.

Churchill bore much personal responsibility for the failure of the Conservatives’ election campaign, including mis-handling a party election radio broadcast in which he claimed that the Labour Party would have to employ a form of ‘Gestapo’ to implement its policies. Labour leader, Clement Attlee, a moderate and unassuming man, had been responsible for much of Britain’s domestic policy during the war – exactly the area on which most people wanted the post-war government to concentrate. Labour ministers had proved themselves capable in key domestic roles. Although all the parties supported the proposals of the Beveridge Report, the Labour Party was more enthusiastic about its implementation than the Conservatives.

After his 1945 defeat, Churchill remained party leader and led the Conservatives into the following general election in February 1950. But he lost again. However, he was given one more opportunity and he did win the following election in 1951 – at least in terms of seats. The Conservatives won fewer votes but more seats than Labour, and went on to form a government over which Churchill presided for three and a half years until he retired at the age of 80. He survived another ten years and died on 24 January 1965.

A shorter version of my article above appeared on the Conversation: http://bit.ly/1BiUNmk

Ten lords who went a-leaping

Political defections usually hit the headlines, but sometimes parliamentarians can defect without anyone even noticing. Most people think of a typical parliamentary defector as an MP crossing the floor of the House of Commons to join a rival party, as Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless did in moving from the Conservatives to UKIP. Churchill is also widely remembered for his ratting and re-ratting between the Conservatives and Liberals.

However, with the growth of multi-party politics, many defections do not necessarily involve the symbolic crossing the floor from government to opposition benches, or vice versa. A defection between two opposition parties does not involve crossing the floor, nor does a transfer between parties in a governing coalition.

There have also been examples of hybrid candidates, such as the Constitutionalists in 1924 who temporarily straddled two parties – Liberal and Conservative. Labour and Co-op MPs, including Ed Balls, carry two party labels. The Co-operative Party was established in 1917, but since 1927 has allied itself, but not merged, with the Labour Party.

Party allegiance is usually defined as being in receipt of a party’s whip (a set of briefing papers), but this can leave room for doubt. A whip can be sent and received, but not wanted. There have been examples where an MP’s party allegiance is no longer clear, as was the case with Cecil L’Estrange Malone in 1920, whose constituency chairman had to write and ask him to which party he belonged.

So far, we have only looked at the House of Commons. If it is not always easy to be certain of an MP’s party allegiance, for members of the House of Lords it can be much more difficult still. 

The House of Lords effectively has three sides - not just government and opposition benches, but also cross-benches. There are currently 176 cross-benchers peers, organised to some extent as a group, but not taking any party whip. Some senior Church of England bishops (currently 24) also sit in the House of Lords. They do not belong to any political party or grouping and are not considered to be cross-benchers either. Peers do not have to stand in general elections under a party banner or send out material to constituents. Many lords rarely attend parliament and do not hold ministerial or party office, so there is little evidence of their party allegiance (if any).

Sometimes when lords go a-leaping from one party to another they do cause a bit of a stir, such as the transfers from the Conservatives to UKIP by Lord Stevens of Ludgate, by Lord Willoughby de Broke and by Lord Pearson of Rannoch.

But others can go unnoticed at the time. Robert Munro was a Liberal MP until 1922. He then went to the House of Lords as Baron Alness (the change of name making his career harder to follow) and eventually in 1945 appeared in Churchill’s Caretaker Government, suggesting that he considered himself a Conservative by then, although he never announced a change of party allegiance.

Lord Trimble, the former Ulster Unionist Party leader, is now a Conservative member of the House of Lords, although the two parties are now separate.

Then there are peers with hereditary titles, where succeeding generations take a different party whip from their forebears. Conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin went to the Lords on his retirement, but his son Oliver, who became the second Earl Baldwin, took the Labour whip. The current (fourth) Earl Baldwin is a cross-bencher. In the opposite direction, the current Lord Attlee, grandson of Labour prime minister Clement Attlee, is a Conservative. Viscount Tenby, grandson of Liberal prime minister Lloyd George and son of a Conservative peer, is a cross-bencher. Lord Trefgarne is a Conservative peer, although he is the son of George Garro-Jones, who was a Liberal, then Labour, then a Liberal again. Viscount Simon, a Labour peer, is the grandson of the first Viscount, who was a Liberal and later a Liberal National politician. 

So, although these ten lords went a-leaping, most of them leapt in the dark. Hardly anyone noticed. 


A version of this article first appeared on the Conversation   http://bit.ly/1xbtAWD

Jeremy Thorpe's bust

Jeremy Thorpe is best remembered as the only British political party leader to have gone on trial for conspiracy to murder. He was acquitted, but the circumstances leading to his trial were so bizarre that they have overshadowed almost everything else about his career, including his jumping over people’s garden gates to deliver leaflets, his campaigning by hovercraft and leading the Liberals to several spectacular by-election victories.

I went to interview Jeremy Thorpe at his home in London in 2001 when I was researching my biography of Clement Davies, the Liberal leader immediately after the Second World War. Poor old Clem had a difficult life. Three of his four children died at the age of 24 in unrelated incidents and Clem was an alcoholic – a fact vehemently denied by some of his former colleagues, but confirmed by his family. Despite all his problems, Clem Davies did hold the Liberal Party together so that there was something left to lead. Clem was succeeded by Jo Grimond and then in turn by Jeremy Thorpe from 1967 to 1976.

By the time I met him, Jeremy Thorpe had been affected by Parkinson’s disease for over twenty years. His voice was barely more than a whisper and he walked with the aid of two sticks. He lived with his second wife, Maria Donata Nanetta Paulina Gustava Erwina Wilhelmine, formerly the Countess of Harewood, known simply as Marion. She died earlier this year and Jeremy died this week at the age of 85.

Their house must have been one of the most expensive addresses in London. It left a lasting, or rather several lasting, impressions on me. My first impression had plenty of time to develop. I was shown into a huge square room full of antiques, books, ornaments and dust. There were beautiful cabinets, but with cracked glass in some of the doors. There was a bust of Jeremy on a desk. (Incidentally, where should one keep one’s own bust?) The dust and the bust were the overriding memories. Time passed, maybe twenty minutes, no-one appeared and I began to look around for the skeletons of previous visitors. Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I looked into the next room. It was almost identical to the first – book, antiques, dust and no sign that anyone had been in there for years.

Eventually I was shown up to Jeremy’s study on the first floor – a small, brightly-lit room with Formica furniture, resembling an examination room at a clinic more than a study in a luxurious house at one of London’s grandest addresses. Jeremy was wary, but helpful and courteous. I think I managed to catch most of what he said.

Next I visited Emlyn Hooson, a parliamentary colleague of Jeremy’s. Emlyn had entered Parliament as Liberal MP for Montgomeryshire at the by-election caused by Clem Davies’s death in 1962. By chance Emlyn ended up being the first person to hear the full story of Jeremy’s alleged relationship with Norman Scott, which set off the chain of events ending at the Old Bailey. Norman Scott turned up at the House of Commons, asking to see the most senior person available from the Liberal Party. Emlyn Hooson fitted the bill, as the only one of the party’s MPs who could be found in the building. Emlyn listened politely, but incredulously, to a story of a gay relationship (illegal at the time in the early 1960s) which had gone wrong.

Eventually, Norman Scott’s Great Dane dog, Rinka, was shot dead on Exmoor by an airline pilot, letters written by Jeremy to Norman appeared in the press, including one with the immortal line ‘Bunnies can and will go to France’. A plot was alleged that involved Jeremy Thorpe conspiring with others to murder Norman Scott. The case was delayed while Jeremy fought and lost his seat in the 1979 general election. He was cleared on all charges, but his subsequent attempts at rehabilitating his career and entering the House of Lords all met with rebuff. He did publish a fragmentary memoir, which glossed over pretty much everything about the trial, but which did reveal another claim to fame. It turns out that Jeremy Thorpe was also the only party leader whose mother was a horsemeat butcher (during the war).

It all leads me to think that had the 1967 Sexual Offences Act (which decriminalised homosexuality) been passed earlier, all of this could have been avoided, Rinka could have lived out her dog’s life, and just think how useful Jeremy Thorpe’s expertise could have been in Parliament during the horsemeat scandal.

UKIP policies could increase immigration

UKIP’s policies could actually cause an increase in immigration. In view of Nigel Farage’s statement (apparently contradicting Mark Reckless) that UKIP immigration policies would not be retrospective, many EU migrants would be likely to rush to the country before the controls were implemented.

Migrants who had come to the UK temporarily might not leave, if they thought that they might not be able to come back again.

Migrants who were still allowed to come to the UK would on average come from further away and therefore be more likely to want to stay longer, bring families or start families in the UK.

Under UKIP’s policies, with a withdrawal from the EU, the outflow of mainly older British people, especially to Spain and France would reduce or could even be reversed.

The current system of migration and border control does not work well. There are estimated to be around 500,000 illegal immigrants in the UK, but no-one knows the real figure. The system is still very porous, even after successive governments have tried to improve the system. Illegal immigrants and gangs would be more likely to exploit the creaking system as it would be under added strain.

And then there are UKIP’s climate change policies. The impact of uncontrolled climate change could dwarf all the other issues, when it comes to migration. Few people would leave Britain if the climate became warmer and sea levels rose. However, virtually uncontrollable surges of refugees could be displaced by drought, storms, floods, drinking water shortages and rising sea levels in countries such as Bangladesh and parts of Africa. Many could seek refuge in the UK.

Has the UKIP tide turned?

Will Rochester and Strood come to be seen as the turning of the tide for UKIP? The turn of a tide is always difficult to spot at the time. Waves come and go, but eventually the direction becomes clear.

The peak support in a national opinion poll for UKIP so far is 25% in the Survation poll on 10 October 2014. Survation tend to show the highest figures for UKIP support among the polling companies, but their more recent polls have shown UKIP support below the peak at 23%. Populus tend to show the lowest levels of UKIP support. Their peak figure was 15% and their most recent poll showed 11% support for UKIP. The recent trend in UKIP support from all the major polling companies is down, not up.

The peak of 25% UKIP support compares to the peak for the Liberal Democrats of 34% before the 2010 election and 50.5% for the SDP/Liberal Alliance in 1981.

The scale of defections to UKIP is still much smaller than those to the SDP in the 1980s. The SDP received 28 sitting Labour MPs and one Conservative.

The history of new parties is one of fragility. The British Union of Fascists, the SDP, the New Party, Veritas, Common Wealth and the Referendum Party all came and went. UKIP has shown a tendency to fragment. Of the 13 UKIP MEPs elected in 2009, five (38%) had left the party by the time of the 2014 European election.

Overall, by-election victors who capture a seat from another party have on average around a 50% rate of retaining the seat at the following general election. The opinion poll from Lord Ashcroft completed on 10 November showed UKIP on course to win the Rochester and Strood by-election on 20 November, but likely to lose the seat at the general election in May 2015.

It is not easy to spot the change in a tide. But tides do tend to turn at some point.