Edinburgh history: 1950 General Election saw Winston Churchill make controversial speech in city but no broadcast coverage of campaign

After five years in power, Labour was hoping to be re-elected at the 1950 general election - and they were, but only just.

And one of the main talking points of the election was a controversial speech by Winston Churchill, as Tory leader, at Edinburgh's Usher Hall.

Labour leader Clement Attlee smiles after the general election on February 23, 1950. Picture: AFP via Getty Images | AFP via Getty Images

Historians often gloss over the 1950 general election. It didn't have the drama of the 1945 election when voters rejected Churchill and elected Labour with a huge majority. And it didn't bring a change of government like the 1951 election, which put Churchill back to power.

But 1950 was nevertheless a landmark election. Despite a quiet campaign - Churchill described it as "demure" - the election on February 23, 1950 saw the highest ever turnout in a UK general election, 83.9 per cent.

It was the first general election since the abolition of the extra vote for owners of shops or businesses and the scrapping of the 12 university MPs elected by graduates and the first when postal voting was not just for armed forces personnel serving away from home.

It was also the first election to see a dedicated results programme on TV, but there was no news coverage of the campaign on TV or radio because the BBC felt its impartiality would be at risk.

And the election also marked the start of the post-war consensus which accepted the huge shift which Labour's reforms had made.

Conservative leader Sir Winston Churchill gives his famous wartime V-sign, during a tour of his constituency of Wanstead on general election day, February 23, 1950. Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images | Getty Images

The Conservatives had voted against the creation of the NHS and opposed nationalisation, but their manifesto contained no commitment to scrapping the NHS or wholesale reversal of nationalisation. And even when the Tories returned to government 18 months later the only nationalisations they did undo were iron and steel and road haulage.

Nationalisation was nevertheless a favourite topic during the 1950 campaign. Labour's manifesto proposed more industries to be taken into public ownership, mainly ones where there was a private monopoly, including cement and sugar.

The proposed nationalisation of sugar refining and manufacture prompted a vigorous resistance campaign well before the election, featuring specially-created cartoon character Mr Cube and the slogan "Tate not state".

And nationalisation was frequently referred to at election meetings. The Evening News of February 8, 1950, reported comments by James Clyde, the Unionist candidate for Edinburgh North, at a meeting in Norton Park School when he called for the idea of nationalisation to be abandoned. "It had not turned out, as promised, that under nationalisation there would be more contented employees. Instead, human contacts had been broken in industry. If steps were taken to reduce nationalisation, and therefore the losses, it would be possible to reduce purchase tax and other taxation to bring a surge of encouragement to the British people.”

The Cold War was already well under way by the time if the 1950 general election. Nato had recently been established, Russia had tested its first atomic bomb six months earlier, and during the campaign American president Harry Truman approved US development of the H-bomb.

It was in this context that Churchill gave his Edinburgh speech on February 14, advocating talks with Russia "at the highest level". "It is not easy to see how things could be worsened by a parley at the summit if such a thing were possible," he declared.

It was the first time "summit" had been used for diplomatic talks and the speech got extensive coverage, not just here but around the world. But opponents dismissed it as a "stunt". They said Churchill was harking back to his talks with Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt towards the end of the war, and claimed the issue was too serious to be dragged into an election.

The previous week Churchill had also made headlines, holding out the prospect of an end to petrol rationing or at least an increase in the allowance, but without making any actual promise.

On the day of his Edinburgh speech, Churchill arrived at Waverley station on the overnight sleeper, just about the same time Attlee was leaving the city - driven everywhere by his wife Violet in their 12-year-old Hillman. The Labour prime minister had given a speech at the Church of Scotland General Assembly Hall the night before.

Clement Attlee leaves Downing Street with his wife Violet at the beginning of a 1,000-mile election tour. Picture: Monty Fresco/Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images | Getty Images

There was a capacity 2,000 audience in the hall and the speech was relayed to people standing in the courtyard. Attlee argued that rationing and other "controls" were necessary to achieve the fairer society. "Without controls of one kind or another we could not get the results,” he said. “Full employment, fair distribution, fair shares for all were not things that grew up by the wayside."

In the absence of radio or TV reporting on the election campaign, party political broadcasts played a much more important role in the campaign than nowadays. They were on radio only, not TV, and could be 10, 20 or 30 minutes long. The parties chose some of their most senior figures for what were effectively broadcast speeches and they often got prominent coverage in the next day's papers.

Although the election was announced on January 10 - more than six weeks before polling - a lowering of the limit on election expenses and widespread uncertainty over what counted saw the parties deciding to “mark time” and delay full-scale campaigning until much closer to the date. It even meant some posters already up were “whited out”.

Some aspects of the grassroots campaign in the constituencies seem quaint from a 21st century perspective. There was a strict limit on the number of vehicles local parties could use to give voters a lift to the polling station - one car for every 2,500 voters in urban constituencies. The restriction was intended to create a level playing field because Tories were seen as having had an advantage with access to more vehicles in an age when cars were far less common.

And the Evening News reported how Lord John Hope, the Unionist in Edinburgh Pentlands, suggested the candidates all agree not to use loudspeakers after 6.30pm "in order to avoid disturbing any household where there may be children".

As the campaign neared its close, the News asked the candidates in each seat to say in a few paragraphs "Why I should be returned to Westminster".

Edinburgh West Unionist MP Sir Ian Clark Hutchison was re-elected | TSPL

Labour’s Eustace Willis, whose effort to be re-elected MP for Edinburgh North was to prove unsuccessful, wrote: “The magnificent achievements of Britain in all fields since the war have been recognised throughout the world. This is a tribute to our people and to the general soundness of Labour’s policy.”

His Unionist opponent, James Clyde, who would emerge victorious, answered the question by saying, among other things: “Because a continuation of Socialist control will mean more nationalisation, more bureaucracy and more jobs for the boys.”

On the day of the election, polling stations opened at 7am, an hour earlier than previously, and the Evening News reported “a steady stream of voters across Edinburgh”, adding that "electors were not deterred by the persistent mist and rain". The record turnout saw polling stations in some parts of the country run out of ballot papers.

Counting of the votes in Edinburgh took place the following day. Under the headline “A Big Poll And A Slow Count”, the Evening News reported: “Although the enumertors began their work at Gorgie Corn Exchange at 9.30am, the first result was not announced until shortly after 4.30pm. There was some grumbling among agents and other party officials at the slowness of the proceedings.”

The Unionists ended up with four of the city’s seven seats. They gained Edinburgh North from Labour - the new MP was lawyer James Clyde, who would later become Lord Advocate and then Lord President of the Court of Session. They also won the newly created Edinburgh Pentlands seat, with Lord John Hope, who was the son of the Marquess of Linlithgow and married to the daughter of novelist Somerset Maugham.

And the Unionists held onto Edinburgh South, held by Sir Will Y Darling, former Lord Provost, shop owner and great uncle of former Chancellor and late Ediburgh MP Alistair Darling; and Edinburgh West, held by Ian Clark Hutchison, whose father and brother were also Unionist MPs.

The Evening News pictured the MPs who on their seats at the 1950 general election. | Evening News

Labour had three seats - Edinburgh East, held by John Wheatley, the Lord Advocate, nephew of John Wheatley the pioneering Housing Minister in the UK’s first Labour government, and father-in-law of maverick West Lothian Labour MP Tam Dalyell; Edinburgh Central, held by Andrew Gilzean, a retired printer and councillor for 21 years, who led slum clearance in the city; and Leith, held by James Hoy, interior decorator and junior minister.

Across the country, Labour won 700,000 more votes than the Tories - and more than they had in the 1945 landslide - but ended up with a Commons majority of just five seats, down from 146.

Much of Labour’s poorer showing was down to a big redistribution of seats with major boundary changes to reflect the wartime depopulation of many big cities - a shift of population which would soon be reversed. Attlee later observed: “We suffered from being too moral over that.”

Because of the slim majority, commentators, the opposition and perhaps even Labour took the result as a virtual dead heat or “stalemate”. Little more than 18 months later, voters were back at the polls and the Tories returned to power.