The Labour Interlude

Abstract

When Churchill and the Conservative Party were defeated in the 1945 General Election, the verdict of the electors was so decisive that the Prime Minister concluded that he ‘did not wish to remain even for an hour responsible for their affairs’.¹ He therefore resigned office on the evening of the declaration of the results, 26 July, and advised the King to send for Clement Attlee, the Labour leader. But those Conservatives who were elected to Parliament realised that had it not been for Churchill’s leadership their defeat would have been even more severe. When the Commons reassembled on 1 August, therefore, they greeted him by singing ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. And Churchill himself, although already over seventy years old, signified his willingness to continue as party leader by buying a house in Kensington, 28 Hyde Park Gate, to supplement his country residence at Chartwell, near Westerham in Kent.