What was the Legacy of the Labour Government?LO – to assess the legacy of the labour government, add detail to knowledge and practice source analysis Today... Finish off how successful was Attlee as a leader Source stations on questioning the legacy of the

Labour government, which should allow you to add detail to your knowledge and practice source analysis

End of the Labour government – presentations on why Labour lost and why Conservatives won in 1951

Starter What is legacy and can you give

an example? What questions do you think

you could ask to assess the legacy of the labour government? E.g. Was austerity unavoidable?

The ‘mini rebellion’ of 1947

A group of 15 Labour MPs joined the ‘keep left’ group. They wanted to increase nationalisation (as it hadn’t included banks or insurance companies and the nationalisation of the bank of England had not changed anything, they were still practically independent), and maintain spending on the welfare state. In return those further right on the party argued that money should be spent on industry and infrastructure, to enable Britain to firstly pay back its debts, before embarking on the huge cost of the welfare state. The group published a pamphlet which advocated that England should adopt an independent foreign policy, away from the pro-American foreign policy of Bevin. In return Attlee and Bevin argued that they were simply working for the best interests of Britain against an aggressive and expansionist Stalinist USSR. Crossman, one of the leaders of keep left even explained this during a speech in 1946 that took place at the opening of every parliament in May.

Rebellion 3 – The Bevanites - backgroundThe Labour party had disagreed

amongst itself since coming into power. Morrison wanted to reduce tax as he believed it was impacting the morale of workers which was in turn affecting Britain’s costs and capacity to earn dollars to close the dollar gap. Contrastingly Bevan wished to maintain the tax burden in order to maintain the costs of the welfare state. Labour also now only had a majority of 5 seats after the 1950 elections. Bevin was also getting frustrated as the NHS seemed to be helping the middle class the most, as they could now go to their high-quality doctors for free, whilst the poorest had to make do with local poor-quality medical clinics.

Rebellion 3 – 1951 – The Bevanites The final straw came for the Bevanites when

Attlee was in hospital, Bevin had a free reign and announced a costly re-armament package included continuing involvement in Korea, and then Gaitskell, the new chancellor of the exchequer announced that prescription charges had to be introduced and that dental care and glasses must be charged be. This completely denied the principal of universality of the NHS and of it being free at charge. Bevan, Harold Wilson (current head of the board of trade and future PM), and John Freeman (a junior minister) resigned in protest.

A complete meltdown of the government seemed so risky that Attlee called another general election for Autumn 1951, before the King went on a 6 month tour in early 1962 – the King being absent during a political crisis was not a favourable option.

How successful was Attlee as a leader?Look at your tables. Make a

judgement. Write the explanation on your post it note and come and stick it on the board.

Which one was the most threatening rebellion for Attlee? 1, 2, mini or 3?

Very successful

Not Successful

What was the Legacy of the Labour Government?LO – to assess the legacy of the labour government, add detail to knowledge and practice source analysis Today... Finish off how successful was Attlee Source stations on questioning the legacy

of the Labour government, which should allow you to add detail to your knowledge and practice source analysis

End of the Labour government – presentations on why Labour lost and why Conservatives won

You will have 10-15 minutes on each station to answer the question using the evidence there and analyse the source

Own knowledge you can linkInferences you can make

What was the Legacy of the Labour Government?LO – to assess the legacy of the labour government, add detail to knowledge and practice source analysis

1. Was Labour winning the election a remarkable achievement?

2. How successful was Labour in fulfilling its promises?

3. Could the ‘Age of Austerity’ have been avoided?4. How successful was Attlee as a leader?

Source – underline key

words and analyse

provenance

Answer the questions in bullet points

using your own

knowledge and precise facts from

the information provided.

What was the Legacy of the Labour Government?LO – to assess the legacy of the labour government, add detail to knowledge and practice source analysis

If you had to sum up the legacy of the labour government in 4 key facts what would you choose?

What have you learnt about source analysis?

Would you say the Labour 1945-1951 government deserves its reputation as a revolutionary government?

The Conservatives winning in 1951Kausar, Charis, Ash – read pp.

42-44 ‘The Conservatives in opposition’ and the handout, and answer ‘Why did the Conservatives win the 1951 election?’

Fares, Reginald, Whelan,

Kelsea – read pp. 45-50 and answer ‘Why did Labour lose the 1951 election?’

Collect in NHS essays

Was Labour winning the election a remarkable achievement?Churchill campaigned under the ‘National Government’, which

was what the Conservatives had called themselves from 1931-1940. He believed this would help communicate the message that they could return to pre-war stability. However, it backfired as the population did not want to return to the trials of the Great Depression and appeasement of Nazi Germany associated with this government.

Labour had also been given, during the war, the opportunity to display to the electorate their domestic competence in government under men such as Attlee, Herbert Morrison and Ernest Bevin at the Ministry of Labour. The Labour Party ran on promises to create full employment, a tax-funded universal National Health Service, the embracing of Keynesian economic policies and a cradle-to-grave welfare state, with the campaign message 'Let us face the future.‘ The soldiers particularly supported Labour due to worries about unemployment about returning home and experiencing left-wing education in the army.

With 47.7% of the vote, Labour secured a staggering 393 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives, with 39.7%, won just 210 seats. The Liberal party, which had governed the country less than quarter of a century earlier, was reduced to 9% of the vote, and just 12 seats. The new prime minister was Churchill's deputy in the war time coalition, Clement Attlee.

Due to the first past the post system and unequal constituencies, for every seat Labour won they polled 30,522 votes. For every seat conservatives won they polled 46,893 votes, and for every seat the Liberals won, they polled 187,352 votes.

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(From Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years: Memoirs 1931–1945, published 1957. Hugh Dalton was a leading Labour MP. Here he is recalling his feelings before the 1945 General Election.)I was very pleased with the quality of many of our candidates. In a number of constituencies, where the result would be close, I thought the personality of our candidates would just make the difference. However, Churchill posed a problem. I thought we would trample the Conservatives underfoot and get a large majority were it not for the personality of Winston Churchill.

Was Labour winning the election a remarkable achievement?

How successful was Labour in fulfilling its promises?

The manifesto pledged nationalisation of the Bank of England, the fuel and power industries, inland transport, and iron and steel. And with a majority of more than 150, the party could not be denied. One by one the key industries of the post-war economy tumbled into the public sector, where they were subject to elaborate planning controls. For the most part the takeovers were highly popular; none more so than the nationalisation of the coalmines. Pit owners still employed a million men, many of them in dire and dangerous conditions. The new national coal board was seen as much as a humanitarian institution as an economic one. Other nationalisation operations were regarded more cynically. No sooner had British Railways taken over the old regional semi-private networks than jokes began to circulate about unreliable, crowded trains, crumbling stations and that old standby of British comedy, the buffet sandwich. After the initial euphoria of nationalisation, it wasn't long before doubts began to emerge. The state industries were smothered by bureaucracy and the demands of Labour's economic gurus, both amateur and professional. Their bolder ideas were often subsumed in the delicate balance between principle and pragmatism.

The birth of the National Health Service in July 1948 remains Labour's greatest monument. It was achieved only after two years of bitter resistance by the medical establishment, with consultants threatening strike action and the British Medical Association pouring out gloomy warnings about bureaucracy and expense. Alas, those warnings proved to have more than a grain of truth, and the government was forced to retreat from its first grand vision of free, comprehensive health care for all. In the beginning, everything was provided: hospital accommodation, GP cover, medicine, dental care, and even spectacles. But with Britain showing few signs of economic take off, the budgetary burden was enormous. In 1951, chancellor of the exchequer Hugh Gaitskell was obliged to reintroduce charges for NHS false teeth and glasses. Aneurin Bevan, Harold Wilson and junior minister John Freeman stormed out of government, and Attlee's goose was cooked.

Bevin, a determined anti-Communist, and critic of the Soviet Union. In 1946 during a conference, the Soviet foreign minister Molotov repeatedly attacked British proposals whilst defending Soviet policies, and in total frustration Bevin stood and lurched towards the minister whilst shouting "I've had enough of this 'ave!' before being restrained by security." He was a strong supporter of the United States in the early years of the Cold War and a leading advocate for British involvement in the Korean War. Two of the key institutions of the post-war world, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Marshall Plan for aid to post-war Europe, were in considerable part the result of Bevin's efforts during these years. This policy, little different from that of the Conservatives ("Hasn't Anthony Eden grown fat?" as wags had it), was a source of frustration to some backbench Labour MPs, who early in the 1945 Parliament formed a "Keep Left" group to push for a more Left-Wing foreign policy.

How successful was Labour in fulfilling its promises?

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Inferences you can makeSOURCE 5(From Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain, published 2007)Under Attlee, Britain remained a country of private clubs and cliques, ancient or ancient-seeming privileges, rituals and hierarchies. In the workplace, there was a return to something like the relationship of pre-war times, with employers’organisations assuming their old authority and influence. Inside the new nationalised industries the same sort of people continued to manage and the same ‘us and them’ relationships reasserted themselves. In the City, stiff collars and top hats were still seen, even among the grey ruins of post-Blitz London. Younger bankers and accountants deferred utterly to their elders. The Times was full ofadvertisements for maids and other servants.

Could the ‘Age of Austerity’ have been avoided?

Britain’s global role had thus become dependent on her position as loyal junior partner of the US. This was not simply the result of a shared strategic outlook but also of an increasing economic dependence which was already evident at the end of the war, with Britain reliant on US goodwill to protect her own global trading routes, and was further illustrated by the anxiety created by the early cancellation of Lend-Lease two days after the surrender of Japan. Later in 1945 came disappointment at the size of the US loan. But empire remained sacrosanct: Keynes, who negotiated the loan, argued that it ‘is primarily required to meet the political and military expenditure overseas’, and not social reform at home.

Defence spending remained at a high level in the post-war period, falling from 20 percent of national income in 1946 but rising again to ten percent in 1951 under the impact of NATO and the Korean War, higher than any other European country except the USSR. Meanwhile workers’ living standards were squeezed: the continuation of wartime controls held imports and consumption levels down while exports were massively increased. Bread rationing was introduced in 1946 while wheat was exported to the British zone of occupied Germany. When the winter of 1946–47 saw Britain’s financial position reach crisis point, the only way out, short of a fundamental restructuring of priorities, was a further turn to the US. Without this, ‘... our financial nakedness [would] be fully apparent to the world,’ as a Foreign Office memorandum put it in February 1947.

In 1947 Britain made the pound freely convertible, which was a condition of the 1946 American loan. For the first time pounds could be sold for dollars. Everyone who could sold their pounds and a currency crisis occurred. 4 weeks later Attlee had to stop the free convertibility. The 1947 harsh winter was not helped by the coal crisis, and during this winter the threat of famine became a real worry, with measures being drawn up to try and stop this. Rationing occurred as Britain tried to close the dollar gap, they were losing money as imports were so expensive, and America was gaining money, so Britain introduced rationing to sell more exports so that they could begin to close the dollar gap. As part of austerity a wage freeze was put into place, which the Trade Union Commission agreed to, but the TGWU (Transport and general workers union), disagreed with and resisted – how could Labour the worker’s party have introduced this? Finally despite the austerity measures exports were continuing to fall. To try and get them to rise the Labour party devalued the currency, so that the goods other countries would buy would be cheaper and exports would go up. It fell from $4.03 to $2.80 in 1949. This made goods even more expensive for people to buy.

Could the ‘Age of Austeiry’ have been avoided?

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Was Attlee a successful leader?During World War Two, Attlee was a highly successful deputy prime

minister in Churchill's coalition government. Then in 1945, when Labour swept to power in a landslide election victory, his combination of social conscience and staunch patriotism encapsulated Labour's experiment in democratic socialism. This led to the creation of the National Health Service and the nationalisation of coal mining and the steel industry. Attlee saw his role of premier as that of an umpire, reconciling the opinions of a cabinet composed of powerful personalities such as Morrison, Bevin and Aneurin Bevan. He played a critical role in supporting Bevin's Cold War diplomacy, and in accelerating independence for India, a cause which he had supported for many years.

After Labour's defeat in the general election of 1951, Attlee's effectiveness dramatically declined, his authority broken by factional fighting within the party. He resigned as leader in 1955 and accepted a peerage. He died on 8 October 1967.

Certainly in reading about him you often find that Attlee was an apparently ordinary person who was in the right place at the right time, and seemed to almost effortlessly drift into high office. From other perspectives, however, this idea of Attlee as an ordinary man who just got lucky is an illusion. Perhaps the idea of Attlee's insignificance was useful, both to himself and his enemies. It suited Attlee because it meant a quiet unassuming fellow could get away with radical policies more easily than someone with the appearance of a fire breathing extremist. It also suited Conservative opponents who could present Attlee as an ineffectual leader who might be pushed around by more forceful and radical members of his party. Finally the insignificance idea also suited ambitious Labour Party rivals like Herbert Morrison, who wanted to succeed Attlee. So perhaps Attlee's ordinariness was partly an image put about by others, and partly a tool used by Attlee himself to get things done. 

Was Attlee a Successful Leader?

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