Postwar: 16. The Result

David Runciman tells the story of the 1945 election and the dawn of a new age.

The 1945 general election was one of the biggest shocks in British parliamentary history: a decisive rejection of Winston Churchill and his leadership. The election of Clement Attlee's Labour government in a landslide marked a break with the past and signalled a strong desire on the part of the British people for something new. But it was also a product of Britain's wartime experiences and revealed the many ways in which the country had already changed.

The years that followed -- the postwar years -- would bring about bold and radical reform, the building of a new nation, a 'New Jerusalem'. The Britain of the National Health Service and the welfare state, of nationalised industry and the so-called 'postwar consensus' -- all were ushered into place with this election. This is the Britain that most have us have grown up in and which still shapes an idea of who we think we are.

Voting took place on Thursday 5th July 1945 – eight weeks after VE Day – and when the polls closed there were no overnight counts, no race to be the first to declare. All around the country ballot boxes were sealed, transported to police stations and town hall basements – and locked away until the votes of servicemen and women overseas were shipped back to their constituencies.

The immediate result of the general election, then, was silence: a three-week hiatus. But it was a natural assumption that Winston Churchill, the war hero, would emerge from that hiatus as the winner. Labour leader Clement Attlee certainly thought so. He had no idea what was coming when the ballot boxes were opened.

Featuring David Kynaston and Robert Saunders.