this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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Mmm that's a pretty fair point. Even back then being the President that ended a war only got you so much political good will in the States. Not sure how it worked for Churchill.
I kinda wonder what if any good solutions there were for this. Doing the moral thing but losing your job doing it and potentially seeing the work you did undone by your successor would suck hella bad.
Well thank you for indulging my questions this has been really fun chatting with you!
Churchill lost re-election because he made a really tone-deaf radio address on Labour's plans for socialized medicine, national insurance, and nationalisation of utilities and critical industries (all of which the overwhelming majority of the country wanted), basically calling them communism, said it would require a "gestapo" to implement, and he wouldn't stand for it.
Clement Atlee more or less thanked him for that speech the next day, and assumed the Prime Minister role after the Tories were absolutely trounced in the 1945 election.
Atlee lasted 6 years. Labour ran the show with a huge majority for a full five year term, then got an unworkably small majority of 5 seats in 1950. Snap election was called in 1951, and Conservatives retook the majority, despite Labour getting 48.8% of the vote, and Conservatives only getting 48.0%.
...Funny how that keeps happening.
Churchill resumed the role of Prime Minister until he retired in 1955.
Why did they still lose, was it like a gerrymandering thing?
It wasn't (maybe still isn't?) a strictly proportional representation system, so the urban areas get slightly fewer members per vote. More equal than the Electoral College, but still imbalanced in favor of the rural areas where wealthy people have huge estates that have been handed down for generations.
Nifty!
Thank you for the history lesson I actually had no idea that's how that all went down.