A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday, 15 October 1964. It resulted in the Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home, narrowly losing to the Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson; Labour secured a parliamentary majority of four seats and ended its thirteen years in opposition since the 1951 election. At age 47, Wilson became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Rosebery in 1894.

Background Both major parties had changed leadership in 1963. Following the sudden death of Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell early in the year, the party chose Harold Wilson (at the time, thought of as being on the party's centre-left), while Alec Douglas-Home, at the time the Earl of Home, had taken over as Conservative leader and Prime Minister in October after Harold Macmillan announced his resignation in the wake of the Profumo affair. Douglas-Home shortly afterward disclaimed his peerage under the Peerage Act 1963 in order to lead the party from the Commons, subsequently standing in the Kinross and Western Perthshire by-election.

Macmillan had led the Conservative government since January 1957. Despite initial popularity and a resounding election victory in 1959, he had become increasingly unpopular in the early 1960s, due to rising unemployment and inflation during the recession of 1960–1961 and the United States' cancellation of the Skybolt program intended to provide Britain with an independent nuclear weapons delivery system after the cancellation of the Blue Streak project. Although Macmillan ended the latter crisis with the Nassau Agreement guaranteeing US assistance in the Polaris programme of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, this also indirectly harmed his reputation after French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain's accession bid to the European Communities over his scepticism of the Anglo-American "Special Relationship."

However, the Labour Party was temporarily divided due to the death of Gaitskell in 1963 and the subsequent leadership election. Although Wilson won this election against his opponents George Brown and James Callaghan, he was mistrusted within the party because of his previous unsuccessful leadership challenge to Gaitskell in 1960. The party also suffered from internal policy disputes over unilateral nuclear disarmament and Clause IV of its constitution, which committed it to nationalisation of industry.

It was for a while thought likely that the Conservatives would win the scheduled 1964 general election, albeit with a reduced majority, but the emergence of the Profumo affair in March 1963 and Macmillan's handling of the matter all but destroyed the credibility of his government. While he survived a vote of no confidence in June 1963, polling indicated that Labour would win the next election comfortably if Macmillan remained in power, which, along with health issues, prompted Macmillan to announce his resignation in the autumn of 1963.

Douglas-Home faced a difficult task in rebuilding the party's popularity with just a year elapsing between taking office and having to face a general election. Wilson had begun to try to tie the Labour Party to the growing confidence of Britain in the 1960s, asserting that the "white heat of revolution" would sweep away "restrictive practices ... on both sides of industry". The Liberal Party enjoyed a resurgence after a virtual wipeout in the 1950s, and doubled its share of the vote, primarily at the expense of the Conservatives. Although Labour did not increase its vote share significantly, the fall in support for the Conservatives led to Wilson securing an overall majority of four seats. This proved to be unworkable, and Wilson called a snap election in 1966.

Campaign The pre-election campaign was prolonged, as Douglas-Home delayed calling a general election to give himself as much time as possible to improve the prospects of his party. The Labour Party indicated that it held high popular support by winning the 1964 London local elections. Conservative leaders became more optimistic about their chances after winning three by-elections in Winchester, Bury St. Edmunds, and Devizes. The election campaign formally began on 25 September 1964 when Douglas-Home saw Queen Elizabeth II and asked for a dissolution of Parliament. The dissolution notably occurred without a formal royal prorogation and recall for the first time since 1922.

The campaign was dominated by some of the more voluble characters of the political scene at the time. While George Brown, deputy leader of the Labour Party, toured the country making energetic speeches (and the occasional gaffe), Quintin Hogg was a leading spokesman for the Conservatives. The image of Hogg lashing out at a Wilson poster with his walking stick was one of the most striking of the campaign.

The Labour Party campaigned on what historian Andrew Thorpe called "the basis of revisionism given a significant twist in the direction of Wilsonian planning, and a more dirigiste approach to industrial modernization." Party leaders also decided that they had lost the previous election because of their failure to appeal to the growing middle class, and adjusted strategy accordingly.

Labour called for greater co-ordination between state-run enterprises and repeated its past pledges for the renationalisation of the steel and road haulage industries, but declared that it would not nationalise any further industries. The party also promised expansions of social services, tax reform, and what would become the prices and incomes policy to control inflation. In education it sought comprehensivisation of secondary education and a higher school-leaving age, while in immigration it sought both immigration quotas restricting future entry and equal rights for immigrants who had already arrived in the country. In foreign policy it pledged a re-evaluation of previous governments' foreign aid and alliances, increased British assertiveness at the United Nations, and a build-up of the conventional components of the British Armed Forces, but did not promise unilateral nuclear disarmament as some left-wing members of the party desired. While early campaigning suggested that a Labour government would abandon the Polaris nuclear weapons programme, Wilson quickly decided to avoid this topic altogether due to the continuing popularity of an independent British nuclear deterrent. Labour's platform of a "socialist foreign policy" also criticised the Conservative government for its handling of a scandal involving the British defence contractor Ferranti, the Aden Emergency, Cypriot intercommunal violence, the escalation of the Vietnam War, arms sales to apartheid South Africa, and a contract to construct naval frigates for Francoist Spain.

Douglas-Home's unpopularity – caused by his aristocratic background, his accession to the premiership without a formal election, his economic and trade policies, and the side-lining of popular Conservative leaders such as Enoch Powell and Iain Macleod – harmed the Conservative Party in the election. Even many Conservatives condemned Douglas-Home for the Resale Prices Act 1964 abolishing resale price maintenance. Douglas-Home's predecessor Macmillan described him as an "urbane but resolute character — iron painted to look like wood". Thorpe cites a PRO file. According to Peter Hennessy in his 19 November 1996 lecture 'Country Values': Alec Douglas - Home, 1963-64 (and chapter 11 of The prime minister: the office and its holders since 1945) Thorpe on 9 October 1996 quoted Macmillan telling the Queen "Alec Home is steel painted as wood". However, his campaigning did allow the Conservative Party's gap in the polls to narrow. The Conservative manifesto Prosperity with a Purpose pledged closer relations with the Atlantic world and the Commonwealth of Nations, development of nuclear power, industrial retraining, increased capital investment in British industry, and continued development of the BAC TSR-2 supersonic aircraft project. The Conservative campaign emphasised the party's diplomatic successes, such as the Nassau Agreement, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the defence of Malaysia in the Borneo Confrontation. Although the Conservatives made limited appeals to new Caribbean, African, and South Asian immigrants by printing campaign literature in Hindi and Urdu, it defended the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 restricting immigration of Commonwealth citizens.

As in previous elections since its decline, the Liberal Party under Jo Grimond's leadership positioned itself as a non-socialist, individualist alternative to Labour. The two key domestic policy pledges in its manifesto Think for Yourself, Vote Liberal were healthcare reform and devolution for Scotland and Wales. The Liberals also were distinguished by their internationalist and pro-European foreign policy, becoming the first major party to endorse British membership in the European Economic Union. Supporters and leaders of the Liberal Party hoped for a breakthrough in 1964 which would re-establish it as a powerful force in British politics after its near-extinction in the 1950s; the party's surprise victory in the 1962 Orpington by-election, its first in a seat outside of the "Celtic fringe" of Wales, Scotland, and the West Country in over a decade, had created optimism and a sense of momentum for a recovery. However, by 1964 the Liberals had lost much of their momentum to a series of by-election and local election losses, and faced growing financial difficulties.

Many party speakers, especially at televised rallies, had to deal with hecklers; in particular Douglas-Home was treated very roughly at a meeting in Birmingham. Douglas-Home's speeches dealt with the future of the nuclear deterrent, while fears of Britain's relative decline on the world stage, reflected in chronic balance of payment problems, helped the Labour Party's case.John W. Young, "International Factors and the 1964 Election." Contemporary British History (2007) 21#3 pp 351-371.

By 1964, television had developed as a medium and played a much greater role than in previous British elections. The election received more coverage from current affairs programs such as BBC1's Panorama, Associated-Rediffusion's This Week, and Granada Television's World in Action, as well as political satire inspired by the success of That Was the Week That Was. The election night was broadcast live by BBC Television, presented for the fifth and final time by Richard Dimbleby, with Robin Day, Ian Trethowan, Cliff Michelmore and David Butler co-presenting.

Opinion polling

NOP: Lab swing 3.5% (Lab majority of 12) Gallup: Lab swing 4% (Lab majority of 23) Research Services: Lab swing 2.75% (Con majority of 30) Daily Express: Lab swing of 1.75% (Con majority of 60)

Aftermath