Table of labour and conservative leaders 1951-2007

Date

Labour

Conservative

1951 – 64

Opposition

Clement Atlee (1951-55)

·         Crated the post war consensus

Hugh Gaitskell (1955-63)

·         Huge divides in the party

·         Gaitskell was to right of the party

·         Wanted to get rid of clause 4 but could not

George Brown (1963-63)

·         Did not do much

Harold Wilson (1963-64)

·         Made the party seem more modern

·         Was very good at using the media

Winston Churchill (1951-55):

·         Last Prime Minister to be concurrently Minister of Defence. Domestic policy (notably end of rationing) interrupted by foreign disputes (Korean War, Ajax, Mau, Malayan Emergency). 

·         Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Antony Eden (1955-57):

·         Egyptian nationalisation of the Suez Canal, which sparked the Suez Crisis. 

·         Premium bonds introduced.

·         Resigned due to ill health.

Harold Macmillan (1957-63):

·         The UK applied to join the European Economic Community for the first time, the application split the Conservatives and was vetoed by Charles de Gaulle;

·         acceptance of Keynesianism;

·          Rent Act 1957; 

·         Wind of Change speech; 

·         Notting Hill race riots and New Commonwealth immigration;

·         opening of the BBC Television Centre; end of National Service;

·         beginning of Beeching cuts;

·          Night of the Long Knives (1962); 

·         Cuban missile crisis;

·          Profumo Affair,

·         He resigned due to ill health.

Alec Douglas-Home (1963-64):

·         Was the 14th Earl of Home when he became Prime Minister, and renounced his peerage on 23 October 1963 in order to stand for the House of Commons.

·         Oversaw the independence of colonies Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland;

·         Abolition of the resale price maintenance.

1964 – 70

Harold Wilson:

·         Social reforms, including legalisation of abortion, abolition of capital punishment and decriminalisation of homosexuality;

·          Rhodesian UDI;

·         Agreed plans for Illegal Expulsion and Forced Deportation…