On 27 July 1965, Edward Heath beat off his rivals to become the first democratically elected leader of the Conservative Party, defeating Shadow Foreign Secretary Reginald Maudling and the more junior contender Enoch Powell in a ballot of Conservative MPs.
Heath, then Shadow Chancellor, took 50.4% of the vote to Maudling's 44.6%, with Powell trailing on a small share of the vote. Because the leading candidates had agreed in advance that there would be no second round if anyone secured an outright majority, Maudling conceded immediately and Heath was declared leader the following day.
A Contest Born of Crisis
The election existed at all because of the chaotic manner in which Alec Douglas-Home had become Conservative leader and prime minister back in October 1963, a process governed by informal consultation among party grandees rather than any vote, which left Douglas-Home's legitimacy repeatedly questioned. After leading the party to defeat at the 1964 general election, Douglas-Home resigned as leader in July 1965 and, crucially, first put in place a new system for choosing his successor: a formal ballot of Conservative MPs, the first the party had ever held.
The Favourite Who Lost
Maudling entered the contest as the clear favourite, both among the wider public and within his own party. Polling at the time gave him a substantial lead over Heath on personal qualities such as being in touch with ordinary people and being seen as modern and up to date. Heath's only real polling advantage over Maudling was on the more unglamorous quality of toughness.
What ultimately swung the contest was organisation rather than ideology; there was relatively little separating the two men on policy, beyond Heath's stronger enthusiasm for Britain joining the European Community. Heath's leadership campaign, run by his lieutenant Peter Walker, was considered significantly sharper and more energetic than Maudling's, whose supporters were seen as expecting the party to rally to him without much active effort on his part. According to accounts of the contest, one of the more persuasive arguments made for Heath came from Keith Joseph, who successfully urged Margaret Thatcher to switch her support from Maudling to Heath by arguing that Heath had "a passion to get Britain right."
Powell's Long-Shot Bid
Enoch Powell's candidacy added an unpredictable element to the race. Standing well to the right of both Heath and Maudling on economic policy, Powell was never seen as a serious contender for the leadership itself, but his presence raised questions about whether he might siphon off enough support from Heath, whose own backing was strongest in northern England and industrial cities such as Birmingham and Wolverhampton, to hand the advantage to Maudling.
What Came Next
Heath went on to form his first shadow cabinet the following day, appointing Maudling as his deputy and Iain Macleod as Shadow Chancellor in his place. He would go on to lead the Conservatives to a landslide defeat at the 1966 general election before an unexpected victory in 1970, becoming prime minister and taking Britain into the European Community in 1973, a policy goal that had shaped his campaign for the leadership eight years earlier.