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Labour in power 1945-1951
labour’s achievements: economic- political- social
Loss of the 1951 general election
1- Landslide victory: 1918, one year after the Bolshevik revolution –Clause IV- , people made rules interpreted as social programs. The labour Party formed a
national government in 1924, with equality with the liberated lasted 9 months because they were two different ideologists, so equality collapsed. Labour changed in 1929 - economic crisis, Wall Street crush-, it created a split inside the labour leadership so the task would be very difficult. The leader Ramsey MacDonald accepted to form qualition with the conservatives but many others did not accept & he seen as traitor & he was expelled from the party – the Great Betrayal-. The conservatives in 1931 took part in government. -Why would the British go to war after what they had lost in the WWI? – Britain was not in favour of going to another war; it found herself involved in the WWII unwillingly. The Germans had invaded Poland, so England was in war against Germany “the People’s War”. In 1940, Churchill became a national qualition government –all parties will join & make a government-. They were fighting a war, all the effort of the country will be directed to winning it. - Why did labour socialists representatives of the working class join the government? Preparing themselves for after the war. During war time, the NQG put into place a ROYAL PARLIAMENT SELECT COMMITTEE, shared “head” by a liberal member of parliament. The sociologist “William Henry Beveridge” gave the government the “Beverage Report” of 1942, in order to offer solutions & look after what was wrong in the war with Britain. The report started to revive the ideas of the “Welfare State”, which came as an opposition to what Hitler was promising “Total Destruction”. Welfare through government intervention was what kept the high spirit of people. The pamphlet became a best seller-hope for a better future-. The report had identified 5 giant evils in the British society which had to be destroyed with the government help: 1- bad living conditions. 2- Diseases 3- ignorance, illiteracy. 4- Poverty 5- idleness, joblessness. These are the evils that a given society face, combated by the government intervention which explains why the liberate did not like the government to interfere in peoples’ lives. Labour socialists adopted this idea of welfare & in 1945 made it part their election program & because of this labour was elected & won the 1945 general election.Armistice was th
signed in the 5 of May 1945; the qualition government kept & waited until July 5 , waiting the soldiers to vote for them. The labour had a very large majority of votes “landslide victory”. The hero that led Britain to victory & wins the Dark Hours was Churchill. 2- Re-entering peace time: In order to assess labour achievement we should see the context of time, how was Britain after the war? What was the social, political, economic reality of that time?
There were deaths “100000’s”, widows & orphans as a negatives social consequence for the country. Britain had to payback huge depths due to the finance in the war, as the country borrowed money from the US, Canada & Australia. Britain’s infrastructure was terribly damaged, factories, bridges, in this period she was facing reality. Politically: India, new powers were emerging like the US. 3- Labour’s achievements:
1- Economic side: 1945, labour government began to nationalize, take into control. E.g. the Bank of England “the Central Bank”, also it nationalized the coal lines. In 1946, it nationalized the transport industry, civil aviations, ports, airways, energy sifter and gas. Also, in 1948 the iron & steel industry with big difficulties. There was resistance from the owners because it was a highly profit making industry....
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