The Conservative Party and Defeat: the Significance of Resale Price Maintenance for the General Election of 1964

The 1964 general election was one of the closest in modern Britishhistory and resulted in the narrowest of defeats for the ConservativeParty, who had been in office continuously for thirteen years.In terms of the popular vote, the difference between the victoriousLabour Party and the Tories was just 0.3 per cent and—witha swing of just 3.5 per cent—the Labour majority in theHouse of Commons was only four, the smallest since Lord JohnRussell's Whigs in 1847. There were, of course, many differentfactors involved in the defeat, including the longterm damagecaused to the Conservative Party by the 'Profumo affair' andother security scandals. Yet, the issue that caused the greatestpolitical problems for the Conservative government in the run-upto the election was not a public scandal or the general managementof the economy, but a seemingly innocuous macroeconomic issueknown as resale price maintenance (RPM). The Macmillan and Douglas-Homegovernment's attempts to abolish RPM—a practice wherebyproducers would dictate the price at which their goods couldbe sold by retailers, thereby ensuring that prices were 'fixed'across the board—led to the biggest backbench rebellionsince Neville Chamberlain was forced out of office in 1940.During the RPM affair, Conservative MPs openly plotted againsttheir own government and threatened it with embarrassing defeatin a series of highly charged parliamentary votes. At one stagethe Conservative government's majority in the House of Commonswas reduced to just one vote. Party whips and managers foundthemselves unable to contain the rebellion, and even the Cabinetfound it difficult to remain above the fray, with several seniorministers strongly opposing the measures. Originally introducedby Harold Macmillan as part of an overarching policy programme,RPM abolition was highly controversial during his administrationand continued to overshadow that of his successor, Alec Douglas-Home.The Conservative government's attempts to legislate againstRPM culminated in an attempt to force through the controversialmeasures in the run-up to the general election. The measuresinvolved and the resulting rancour, fed by an anti-governmentcampaign organized by retailers and a large section of the press,split the party and alienated many 'natural' Conservative votersm the country. This study seeks to explain the issue of RPMabolition and its origins within the context of the two successiveConservative administrations, and to assess the political rationalebehind the controversial decision to proceed with the ResalePrices Bill in Parliament. The intention is not to show thatRPM abolition in isolation was responsible for the ConservativeParty's defeat in 1964, but rather to demonstrate that the directand indirect effects of the whole issue were crucial to theelectoral fortunes of the Conservative Party in one of the closestgeneral elections in modern British history.