(Changing political landscape) The Labour government, 1945-51

Question 1

What was labour’s surprise victory in 1945 spurred on by?

Answer 1

The spirit of collectivism that had been fostered in British society by the war.

Question 2

What are the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide?

Answer 2

Leadership
Attlee
Conservative slogan
Policies
Public mood

Question 3

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to leadership.
How did Attlee portray himself?

Answer 3

A ‘man of the people’

Question 4

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to leadership.
What did Attlee prove?

Answer 4

He managed the home front in WW2, showing himself and the labour party to be capable leaders.

Question 5

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to campaigns.
Why did labour break off the wartime coalition after the war?

Answer 5

To force an election

Question 6

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to campaigns.
What forced an election after the war?

Answer 6

Labour broke up the coalition government.

Question 7

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to campaigns.
What was labour’s slogan?
What is effective?

Answer 7

‘Let us face the future’.

Yes

Question 8

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to campaigns.
What did labour’s campaign poster look like?

Answer 8

Pictures of women & soldiers accompanied by the text ‘Labour for him’ or ‘Labour for her’.

Question 9

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to campaigns.
What did Attlee spend a lot of time doing?

Answer 9

Touring the country.

Question 10

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to campaigns.
What was wrong with Churchill’s campaign?

Answer 10

It was lacklustre as he was so confident in his victory after winning the war.

Question 11

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to the conservative slogan.
What was the conservative slogan?

Answer 11

‘Let’s finish the job’

Question 12

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to the conservative slogan.
What did Churchill do that was ill-received by the public?

Answer 12

Made a distasteful and poorly judged ‘Gestapo’ speech.

Question 13

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to the conservative slogan.
In some respects, what were the conservatives demonstrating?

Answer 13

A complacency similar to that of Baldwin’s conservative government in 1929.

Question 14

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to policies.
What had labour promised to do?
How did this compare to conservative?

Answer 14

Implement the policies of the Beveridge Report

Churchill rejected it & didn’t have a clear strategy for post-war recovery.

Question 15

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to policies.
How did labour’s manifesto look compared to conservative’s?

Answer 15

More detailed and ambitious

Question 16

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to policies.
What did labour’s manifesto show a commitment to?

Answer 16

Beveridge, Keynesianism and ultimately Democratic Socialism.

Question 17

One of the 5 reasons labour won by a landslide was due to public mood.
What was the public mood of the time?

Answer 17

People wanted a change after the harsh war years and associated Tories with the high unemployment of the 20s and 30s and the failure of appeasement.

Question 18

Transformative agenda - what did labour do to many key industries such as coal, shipbuilding & railways?

Answer 18

Nationalise them

Question 19

Transformative agenda - what did the nature of the amount of reforms in social and healthcare reforms create?

Answer 19

A welfare state.

Question 20

Transformative agenda - what key policies were adopted?

5

Answer 20

Mixed economy
Universal healthcare
Welfare state
Full employment
Cooperation with TUs

Question 21

Transformative agenda - labour adopted a number of key policies. What did they become?

Answer 21

The foundations of post-war consensus

Question 22

Transformative agenda - why was the 1947 Industrial Charter important?

Answer 22

Reflects how conservative associated with many economic and social policies introduced by Attlee’s labour government.
It accepted many things like commitment to full employment and protection of workers and the welfare state.

Question 23

Labour’s loss - what year was the following election and the one labour subsequently lost in?

Answer 23

1951

Question 24

Labour’s loss - how were the principles of governance that labour supported received?

Answer 24

They were more popular than labour itself.

Question 25

Labour’s loss - what was the reality of labour’s government, despite wholesale changes in welfare and governance?
Give evidence of this.

Answer 25

Living standards didn’t rise because they had to follow a process of economic austerity.

By the end of WW2, Britain was “6 weeks away from famine”.

Question 26

Labour’s loss - what was negotiated?

Why was this a bad decision?

Answer 26

A £2.2 billion loan from the USA

It was on top of the billions that Britain was in deficit in as a need of paying back support for the war effort.

Question 27

Labour’s loss - what was the context in which declining living standards and the economic deficit took place in?

What did this mean?

Answer 27

Rebuilding and moving back to a civilian peace-time economy.

There was therefore no choice but to continue some wartime measures like rationing. This was morale sapping and led to a dissatisfaction with labour.

Question 28

Labour’s loss - what didn’t have the intended effect?

Answer 28

Austerity

Question 29

Labour’s loss - why didn’t austerity have the intended effect?

Answer 29

A particularly harsh winter in 1947 slowed economic production and forced Britain to devalue the pound in 1949 in light of money owed to the USA.
Therefore, the economic outlook got even worse.

Question 30

Labour’s loss - what is austerity?

Answer 30

When the government in receiving more tax than it is spending.

Question 31

Labour’s loss - why didn’t living standards raise between 1945-51?

(3)

Answer 31

Not enough sensible investment in peacetime economy - spending on soldiers abroad had to continue.
Resulted in underinvestment in manufacturing so Britain couldn’t build a competitive industry.

People diverted from consumerism due to rationing until 1951. Furniture remained rationed - built with as little wood as possible, linking to how manufacturing was under strain by austerity.

Pressure on manufacturing and drive for cheap homes led the govt to build prefabricated houses to give people homes quickly.

Question 32

Labour’s loss - lots of food remained rationed until 1951. What did the Daily Mail call this?

Answer 32

“The most unpopular policy in the history of the British isles”

Question 33

Labour’s loss - name 2 countries that were experiencing manufacturing booms in this time while Britain was struggling to build a competitive industry.

Answer 33

Germany & Japan

Question 34

Labour’s loss - what did prefabricated houses consist of?

What were they replaced by?

Answer 34

Wooden walls and flat roofs.

After 1951, the concept of “blocks of flats” appeared, The Lansbury Park estate being the first.