The Labour Party entered the election by being weakened by the emerging schism between
Gaitskellites, on the right of the party, and the
Bevanites, on its left. The party's manifesto stated that the party "proud of its record, sure in its policies—confidently asks the electors to renew its mandate". It identified four key tasks facing the United Kingdom that it would tackle: the need to work for peace, the need to work to "maintain full employment and to increase production", the need to reduce cost of living and the need to "build a just society". The manifesto argued that only a Labour government could achieve those tasks. It also contrasted the Britain of 1951 with that of the
interwar years in which there had been largely Conservative-led governments by noting that the interwar period had seen "
mass-unemployment; mass fear; mass misery". It did not promise more
nationalisations, unlike in the previous year's election, and instead focused on offering more
council housing and a pledge to "associate the workers more closely with the administration of public industries and services". However, it remained opposed to full
workers' control of industries. As for the
Liberal Party, its poor election result in
1950 only worsened this time. Unable to get the same insurance against losses of
deposits of the previous year, it fielded only 109 candidates, as opposed to 478 in 1950, and thus posted the worst general election result in the party's history by getting just 2.5% of the vote and winning only six seats. The popular vote of the Liberals and later the
Liberal Democrats has not fallen so low since, but their lowest number of six seats would be matched in several future elections. The Liberal Party's growing irrelevance weakened the Labour Party since two thirds of potential Liberal voters supported the Conservatives. The subsequent Labour defeat was significant for several reasons. The party polled almost a quarter-million votes more than the Conservative Party and its
National Liberal Party ally combined; won the most votes that Labour has ever won (as of 2024); and won the most votes of any political party in any election in British political history, a number that would not be surpassed until the Conservative Party's
victory in 1992. However, the Conservative Party formed the next government with a majority of 17 seats. It performed much better with male working-class voters than in the elections of 1945 or 1950 and tipped the vote away from Labour in
Lancashire, the
Home Counties and
East Anglia. Under the
first-past-the-post electoral system, many Labour votes were "wasted" because they were included in large majorities for MPs in
safe seats. ==Results==