LABOUR RETURNED IN BRITAIN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 113, 25 February 1950, Page 5

LABOUR RETURNED IN BRITAIN

NARROW MARGIN MAY BE UNWORKABLE

With 25 results to come, the state of the parties was:— Labour 311 Conservative .. .. 268 Liberals .. i .. • • 7 National Liberal .. 2 Conservative-Liberal .. 14, Others .. . • • • 0 The stream of Conservative successes when counting was resumed to-day cut Labour’s lead over the Conservatives in two hours from 61 to 25. By 4 p.m. G.M.T. Labour’s overall majority was down to seven, and in another hour Labour and the combined other parties were level, excluding the Speaker. At this stage, Labour .and combined other parties each held 267 seats. During the hour between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. the combined other parties drew level with Labour on four occasions, and four times Labour went one ahead. By 5.30 Labour’s overall majority had risen to 11 after fluctuating for 15 minutes between five and seven.

Labour seemed assured of a narrow win at 6 p.m. when, with about 30 results still to come, they needed four more seats for an overall majority. They gained these seats in the next 20 minutes. Churchill’s Majority Mr Churchill was elected at Woodford with 37,239 votes against Labour’s 18,740. Thus his majority was 18,535, compared with 17,200 in 1945. As the rural areas rallied to the support of the Conservatives, it became clear that the nation was cleanly split politically right down the middle. Labour’s successes and increased majorities in the cities indicated that, in spite of rationing and austerity,

(N.Z.P.A.— Copyright.) (Rec. 9.10 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 24. The Attlee Socialist Government has retained power as a result of the British General Election, but the narrow victory came only after a gruelling day-long straggle in which the combined Conservative and Liberal Opposition four times drew level.. It was a 1962 Labour victory in Central Ayrshire over the Conservatives which gave Labour their decisive seat. Earlier the Socialists had weathered a landslide for Winston Churchill's Conservatives. The Conservative vote in the countryside rallied to Churchill’s banners and quickly wiped out the lead of 60 seats gained by Labour the previous night. The see-saw battle tested party leaders’ nerves for another five hours before Labour finally edged forward to victory, but Labour’s victory margin is so narrow that political observers consider that the nation may have to go back to the polls m a few months, or even weeks. Labour’s majority is so slender that experts predict that it will probably be unworkable. Britain thus, finds, herself in a political vacuum at a time of grave economic crisis.

the working classes believed they had benefited from four and a half years of'the Welfare State. The rural swing to the Right was interpreted as an indication of middle class dissatisfaction with high taxation under the Labour Government. One- of the remarkable features of the election has been that the 85 per cent, poll has been maintained. The first 400 results showed that 18,741,863 of a possible 22,010,571 electors voted—slightly more than 85 per cent. Afternoon papers described the election as “one of the most dramatic struggles in history.” The “Evening Standard”, said: “Tories make a great fight to force a stalemate: Hour by Hour Battle: and the innocents, ‘Liberals and Communists,’ go to the slaughter.” Imagination Gripped The “battle” gripped the imagination of the'public. Those who had awakened to hear that the next Government would almost certainly be Labour were gripped with something approaching test match fever as the Labour majority dwindled. When Britain went to lunch it looked like a win for Labour. By the time lunch was over it was anybody’s guess. Anxious Londoners queued up for newspapers. Thousands milled around scoreboards at various parts of the City ,and London took on an air of tenseness reminiscent of earlier days. Every time batches of figures came in and scoreboards were altered, there was a buzz from crowd/ swarming around. By 4 p.m. newspapers were rushing special editions on to the streets with headings .such as: “Can the Tories Do It?” and “The Tories Hit Back Hard.”