Here in Britain the office of Prime Minister is not directly elected. The only electorate Churchill faced was that of his constituency, Woodford. In 1945 he was reelected with a majority of 17,200. In 1950 his majority was 18,449, in 1951 18,579, in 1955 15,808 and in 1959 it was 14,797.
Throughout the years of the Attlee government nothing but universal respect was shown to Churchill by the government, Parliament, the press or the public at large. The idea that Churchill personally was rejected is a myth.
On his death the nation came to a halt. As a young man I was among the hundreds of thousands who waited at vantage points on the railway between London and Banbury to see his coffin pass on a single open rail wagon on the way to his final destination, the family plot at Blenheim. That was not the tribute of a nation which had 'rejected' the man.
Sorry to bother again, but Mr. Dfwgator is right in his assessment that the Labour Party indeed had viable plans to manage the most pressing issues which followed the cessation of hostilities: feeding the nation, providing clothing, basic medical services and a roof over the heads of those who had lost theirs.
Churchill was a magnificent war leader, no doubt, but in peacetime, with many other pressing problems at hand, he was not seen as the right man at the helm.
A few Britons also (secretly) thought that he had assumed too much of the airs of an autocrat, this grinded the gears of a good few voters, who thought that it couldn’t harm him to be taken down a peg. The British are, for the most part, too democratic- minded to tolerate too much haughtiness in the people whom they elect…
Furthermore, the British voting system, with its „first past the post“ principle, disadvantaged the Conservative Party in the 1945 general election. Still, its strong point is to nearly always provide a stable majority in the House of Commons.
Still, Churchill returned to the helm in 1951 😀