Although Macmillan ended the latter crisis with the Nassau Agreement guaranteeing US assistance in the Polaris programme of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, this also indirectly harmed his reputation after French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain's accession bid to the European Communities over his scepticism of the Anglo-American "Special Relationship.

Although Wilson won this election against his opponents George Brown and James Callaghan, he was mistrusted within the party because of his previous unsuccessful leadership challenge to Gaitskell in 1960.

[3] It was for a while thought likely that the Conservatives would win the scheduled 1964 general election, albeit with a reduced majority, but the emergence of the Profumo affair in March 1963 and Macmillan's handling of the matter all but destroyed the credibility of his government.

Wilson had begun to try to tie the Labour Party to the growing confidence of Britain in the 1960s, asserting that the "white heat of revolution" would sweep away "restrictive practices ... on both sides of industry".

While George Brown, deputy leader of the Labour Party, toured the country making energetic speeches (and the occasional gaffe), Quintin Hogg was a leading spokesman for the Conservatives.

[citation needed] The Labour Party campaigned on what historian Andrew Thorpe called "the basis of revisionism given a significant twist in the direction of Wilsonian planning, and a more dirigiste approach to industrial modernization.

[8] Labour's platform of a "socialist foreign policy" also criticised the Conservative government for its handling of a scandal involving the British defence contractor Ferranti, the Aden Emergency, Cypriot intercommunal violence, the escalation of the Vietnam War, arms sales to apartheid South Africa, and a contract to construct naval frigates for Francoist Spain.

[14][15] The Conservative campaign emphasised the party's diplomatic successes, such as the Nassau Agreement, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the defence of Malaysia in the Borneo Confrontation.

Douglas-Home's speeches dealt with the future of the nuclear deterrent, while fears of Britain's relative decline on the world stage, reflected in chronic balance of payment problems, helped the Labour Party's case.

[7] The election night was broadcast live by BBC Television, presented for the fifth and final time by Richard Dimbleby, with Robin Day, Ian Trethowan, Cliff Michelmore and David Butler co-presenting.

In particular, the small majority meant the government could not implement its policy of renationalising the steel industry due to the opposition of backbenchers Woodrow Wyatt and Desmond Donnelly.

"[16] David Butler and Donald E. Stokes's influential 1969 British Election Study report Political Change in Britain attributed the Labour victory to Wilson's greater popularity than Home and the party's appeal to younger voters.

The Conservatives tried to attract working-class voters by improving the party's relationships with trade unions through the Conservative Trade Union Councils at the party level and the new National Economic Development Council at the governmental level; however, their outreach was weakened by the Rookes v Barnard decision allowing employers to collect punitive damages from strike actions and Douglas-Home's tough approach to industrial relations.

[25] Aggregate data analyses of the results demonstrate higher turnout in constituencies dominated by the professional–managerial class, agricultural workers, council tenants, voters without automobiles, and the elderly.

[citation needed] On the other hand, Labour's poorer performance in central and southern England and loss of five seats in that area indicated an increasing white working-class backlash against nonwhite immigration.

The most notable example of this was the contest in Smethwick, in which an explicitly racist campaign by Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths stoking anxieties around deindustrialisation and a shortage of council housing by targeting immigrants unseated Shadow Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker.