Editing Zinoviev letter (section)

=== Election result ===
The Conservatives decisively won the October 1924 election, ending the country's first Labour government. After the Conservatives formed a government with [[Stanley Baldwin]] as Prime Minister, a Cabinet committee investigated the letter and concluded that it was genuine.<ref>{{cite book|first=Charles Loch|last=Mowatt|title=Britain between the wars: 1918–1940|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1955|page=193}}</ref> The Conservative government did not undertake any further investigation, despite continuing suggestions that the letter was forged.<ref>{{cite book|first=Charles Loch|last=Mowatt|title=Britain between the wars: 1918–1940|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1955|page=194}}</ref> On 21 November 1924, the government cancelled the unratified trade agreement with the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite book|title=Britain, Soviet Russia and the collapse of the Versailles order, 1919–1939|url=https://archive.org/details/britainsovietcol00neil|url-access=limited|first=Keith|last=Neilson|page=[https://archive.org/details/britainsovietcol00neil/page/n60 49]|year=2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521857130}}</ref> At about this juncture, [[MI5]] determined secretly that the letter was beyond question a forgery. In order to protect its reputation and to keep the myth of Labour's acquiescence to the Soviet Union alive, it did not inform the rest of the government, which continued to treat it as genuine.<ref>{{cite book|author=Christopher Andrew|title=Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M84O5pYh3rcC&pg=PA151|year=2009|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|page=151|isbn=978-0307272911}}</ref>

The Conservatives gained 155 seats, for a total of 413 seats. Labour lost 40 seats, retaining 151. The Liberals lost 118 seats, were left with only 40, and lost over a million votes.