History of England 1-6

When VE day was announced, a ration-ridden nation felt able to loosen its halter for a moment. For the children, there was a special treat of free ice cream. One mother, speaking of the day when the surrender of the German armed forces was announced on the wireless, remembered offering this earnest injunction to her four-year-old: ‘“Marian,” I said. “You must remember this all your life. It’s history.” But the reception was poor; and I could see that she would forget at once any word she happened to hear.’

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The pangs of austerity

The nation that gathered at the polling booths in June 1945 was weary and ripe for a gust of optimism. But where the Labour party threw up the sash and flung open the window, the Conservatives seemed huddled in a corner, growling out their maledictions with little regard for the national mood. As Churchill warned, ‘Socialism is, in its essence, an attack not only upon British enterprise but upon the right of an ordinary man and woman to breathe freely, without having a harsh, clumsy, tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils.’ Many might have agreed, but he went further: ‘No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp or violently worded expressions of public discontent. They will have to fall back on some form of Gestapo.’ If his reference to wartime conditions was merely unfortunate, this proved disastrous. Its manifest hyperbole at once disgusted and alienated many supporters.

By contrast, the Labour party attacked the profiteer and promised that most elusive of grails: economic equality. While Churchill invoked his wartime record, Labour looked further back, citing the hardship that had wasted the Thirties. In the Daily Mirror, a cartoon showed a veteran holding out the promise of peace to the people of Britain, with the plea that they should not squander it ‘this time’. More subtly, Labour slipped a lever under the very cornerstone of Conservatism. ‘Freedom is not an abstract thing … there are certain so-called freedoms that Labour will not tolerate: freedom to exploit other people, freedom to pay poor wages and to push up prices for selfish profit, freedom to deprive the people of the means of living full, happy, healthy lives.’ There was, of course, an element of ‘shadowboxing’ in all this: the claims of the two parties were not irreconcilable. Nevertheless, the majority of the people, stirred by the appeals to solidarity and equality, made their choice. The success of the Labour party in 1945 was as unexpected by some as it was desired by others.

There were those who drew up elaborate plans for a better, safer world. Although Sir William Beveridge has great claim to be the founder of what became known as ‘the welfare state’, the Tories were also part of the group of experts that fashioned the report entitled Social Insurance and Allied Services in 1942. This, in turn, built upon the work of Lloyd George and the Liberals in the 1900s. In any sense that matters, the new welfare state was the lucky progeny of natural enemies. In 1944, one commentator declared that ‘the time and energy and thought, which we are all giving to the Brave New World is wildly disproportionate to what is being given to the Cruel Real World’. Every second thought was now directed towards the goal of reconciling the claims of employer and employee. It was believed that the unions would lie down with employers as lambs with lions.

The Labour party had no desire to continue in coalition with Churchill and the Conservatives. Many aspired to some ‘good old days’ after the years of hardship, and a few were foolish enough to trust them. But the vision expounded by the Labour party was to be a new dawn for a new epoch, and with a new breed of man in mind.

This was reflected in the rival campaigns. Labour fought with the vigour and vitality derived from a new horizon, while Churchill could not help but dwell upon his victories. Few relish being reminded of a period of pain, even by their deliverer, and so it proved. In the general election of July 1945, Labour won 393 seats and the Conservatives won 219, an exceptional result. Even the most stubborn Tory might have felt the force of a rising wind.