With little new in the way of policies to offer the voters Labour focused on what it believed were its successes since coming to power in 1945.
The partyís manifesto boasted: "Full employment through six years of peace is the greatest of all Labour's achievements," and no opportunity to beat the Tories with the stick of the mass unemployment of the 1930s was wasted.
As public anxieties about a possible third world war were heightened by the fighting in Korea, both parties were keen to paint themselves as the guardians of peace and a strong Commonwealth.
For their part, Churchillís Conservatives promised to ease the housing shortage by building up to 300,000 new homes a year and pledged to tackle Labourís failure to deal with rising prices.
The Liberals, whose ambition was limited in this campaign, made their reasoned plea for support, putting themselves once more above the "class war" they accused the main parties of fighting.