The Will of the People_ Winston Churchill and Parliamentary Democracy - Martin Gilbert [43]
As the Labour Government struggled to maintain its majority, the political battle intensified. At the General Election on 23 February 1950, Labour was returned to power with a greatly decreased majority—its seats falling from 393 to 315 and the Conservative seats rising from 213 to 298—an overall Labour majority, discounting the Speaker, of only six. Churchill, who earlier had recommended a five-year gap between General Elections, pressed for another election as soon as possible. As he told the House of Commons on 6 November 1950: “We must not forget what votes are. Votes are the means by which the poorest people in the country and all the people in the country can make sure that they get their vital needs attended to.”
The second General Election within two years was held on 25 October 1951. Although the actual number of votes cast for Labour (13,948,605) were slightly higher than those cast for the Conservatives (13,717,538), the constituency system of “first past the post” ensured 321 Conservative seats against 295 for Labour. Churchill became Prime Minister for a second time.
The election result led to an upsurge in calls for proportional representation, on the assumption that Labour would have won the election if such a system had been in place. Churchill commented in the House of Commons on 17 February 1953: “It is quite true that I expressed a view many years ago, which I have not seen any reason to dismiss from the region of theoretical principle, in favour of proportional representation in great cities. I have not expressed any views in favour of proportional representation as a whole, on account of the proved ill-effect it has on so many Parliaments.” Speaking in general about opinions he had once held, but held no longer, he told the House of Commons on 5 May 1952: “My views are a harmonious process, which keeps them in relation to the current movement of events.”
One aspect of parliamentary democracy that Churchill held as central to the working of the whole system was the Monarchy as compared to a Presidency. “There is no doubt,” he said on 7 February 1952, in his broadcast tribute after the death of King George VI, “that of all the institutions which have grown up among us over the centuries, or sprung into being in our lifetime, the constitutional monarchy is the most deeply founded and dearly cherished by the whole association of our peoples. In the present generation it has acquired a meaning incomparably more powerful than anyone had dreamed possible in former times. The Crown has become the mysterious link—indeed, I may say, the magic link—which unites our loosely bound but strongly interwoven Commonwealth of Nations, States and races. Peoples who would never tolerate the assertions of a written constitution, which implied any diminution of their independence, are the foremost to be proud of their loyalty to the Crown.”
From his first visit to the United States in 1895, Churchill had made fourteen visits across the Atlantic before the end of his second premiership in 1955. He had met several American Presidents, starting with William McKinley in 1900, and he often reflected on the contrast between the parliamentary and the presidential systems. Jock Colville, his Joint Principal Private Secretary in his second premiership, later commented on Churchill’s attitude to the American presidential system: “He was firmly opposed both to a presidential system and to the separation of powers.” Colville went on to quote Churchill’s warning: “The union of the pomp and the power of the State in a single office exposes a mortal to strains beyond the nature, and to tasks beyond the strength, even of the best and greatest of men.”
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