Winston Churchill's Election Defeat

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2018

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In July l945 Britain's great wartime leader, Winston Churchill, was defeated in a general election. The Labour party's landslide came just weeks after the surrender of Nazi Germany and remains one of the greatest shocks in British political history. How did Winston Churchill, a hugely popular national hero, fail to win? Louise Hidalgo has been listening back through the archives.

Picture: Winston Churchill makes a speech during the 1945 election campaign (Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
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1:02.0	and a lot more watching.
1:03.4	Listen on BBC Sounds.
1:05.6	You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service
1:09.7	with me Louise Adaggo.
1:11.6	Today we're going back to July 1945 when Britain's great wartime
1:16.3	leader Winston Churchill suffered a surprise defeat in the British general
1:20.6	election as World War II was coming to an end. I've been listening
1:24.7	back through the archives to people involved in the campaign.
	...

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