On Thursday 26 May 1955, the 1955 United Kingdom general election was held in Scotland, to elect all 630 seats of the House of Commons, with 71 constituencies being in Scotland.

The election was the first of 18 general elections held under the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, the fifth and the last election in which the Labour Party was led by Clement Attlee, and the first general election for which television coverage remains in existence. It was the first election under the first periodic review of Westminster constituencies, the first review following the Initial Review of Westminster constituencies.

Candidates

Below is a table summarising the candidates of the 1951 general election in Scotland.

Affiliation CandidatesLabour Party 71Unionist Party 59National Liberal Party 12Liberal Party 5Communist Party of Great Britain 5Scottish National Party 2Independent Liberal 1Independent Labour Party 1Total 156

Analysis

The election is often cited as the only time since the Second World War that one party has achieved a majority of the Scottish vote, and the last election at which the Conservative and Unionist Party returned a majority vote from Scotland: candidates supporting the Conservative government of Anthony Eden received 50.1% of the vote and 36 of Scotland's 71 seats at Westminster.

Six of the government's MPs were returned that year under the label of National Liberal and Conservatives, with the remainder being returned under the Unionist label under the national affiliation with the Conservative Party. The election predated the 1965 merger of the Unionists and Conservatives by a decade, whilst the National Liberals did not formally join with the Conservatives until 1967. Nonetheless as of 1955 all three parties remained separate entities, albeit closely associated. The National Liberal Party retained its seats of Dumfriesshire, East Fife, South Angus, North Angus and Mearns, West Renfrewshire and Ross and Cromarty.

Labour lost Central Ayrshire to the Unionist Party, but gained Glasgow Govan. The Unionist Party also won the newly created constituency of Glasgow Craigton, which was nominally held by Labour. Jo Grimond of the Liberal Party retained his very safe seat of Orkney and Shetland. Grimond would go onto become the leader of the Liberal Party the following year.

Results

+PartySeatsAggregate votes Total Gains Losses Net Of total (%) Total Of total (%) Change (%)   Unionist (Total)36 2 1 1 50.7 1,273,942 50.1 1.5   Unionist 30 2 1 1 42.3 1,056,209 41.5 1.6   National Liberal 6 0 0 8.4 217,733 8.6 0.1   Labour Party 34 1 2 1 47.9 1,188,058 46.7 1.2   Liberal 1 0 0 1.4 47,273 1.9 0.8   Communist 0 0 0 — 13,195 0.5 0.1   SNP 0 0 0 — 12,112 0.5 0.2   Independent Liberal 0 colspan=3 — 6,055 0.2   Ind. Labour Party 0 0 0 — 2,619 0.1 Total 71 100.0 2,543,254 100.0 0.0 Registered voters, and turnout 3,387,536 75.1 6.1

See also 1955 United Kingdom general election in England 1955 United Kingdom general election in Wales 1955 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1955–1959)

Notes

References