Despite the Suez Crisis and the Conservatives already having served two terms in office, Macmillan took the Party into the general election on 8th October 1959 and won an increased majority of 100 over Hugh Gaitskell’s Labour Party. Fighting a resurgent Labour Party which came out on the offensive early, the Conservatives managed a cautious campaign, relying on the economic boom which 2 years earlier had led to Macmillan’s “You’ve never had it so good” speech in Bedford.

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Extract from a post-mortem analysis of the 1959 General Election by Michael Fraser, Director of the Conservative Research Department,
5th November 1959 [CRD 2/49/72]

Two extracts from the Conservatives’ Weekly News Letter printed in the weeks following the election victory, Oct-Nov 1959 [Shelfmark: PUB 193/15]; and Macmillan’s personal message to Conservative candidates prior to the 1959 General Election [Shelfmark: CCO 500/24/132]