Cyphers or agents?

The role of political candidates in general elections, and whether they determine the result, remains a long-discussed dynamic in electoral politics. Duncan Tanner questioned the extent to which the candidates mattered, or whether they were mere cyphers for national-level debate. 1 There are contemporaneous examples in constituencies, such as those in rural north Wales, which were affected by ongoing cultural change where politicians reacted and adapted their approach to broaden their appeal. 2 From this perspective, the 1964 result was not a foregone conclusion, and prospective candidates had agency to appeal to voters and secure their support. The immediate political context at Smethwick was not unusual, and locally Labour was not an opposition party, but had been very much ‘in power’ before spring 1964. Labour had, therefore, controlled the Council alongside holding the parliamentary seat at a time of difficult change, which made local Conservative success possible notwithstanding Sir Alec Douglas-Home’s unpopular government. Despite new Labour leader Harold Wilson’s developing national appeal, the peculiar position was that Smethwick Labour and its candidate, Patrick Gordon Walker, had more limited potential in a town precisely because they had dominated municipal and parliamentary politics for so long.