Britain 1940-51 - Attle government 1945-51

• Labour won 393 seats vs Cons 197
• 1st overall majority in 50 year history
• Libs = 12 seats
• Coalition ended March 23 1945
• Key people;
  • Bevin = Foregin Secretary 
  • Herbert Morisson = Leader in Commons
  • Hugh Dalton = Chancellor
  • Stafford Cripps = Board of Trade

• Leftward shift during war  
• Opinion polls 1941 - Labs >popular
• 1943> 10-20% lead
•  Beat Cons in by-elections
• >ing TU activity
• Soviet Russians help defeat Hitler
• Cons blamed for failures of 30s; unemployment, social deprivation & appeasment
• 'ghost of Chamberlain' - Labs used failures as electoral propaganda - 'Never Again'
• Public saw benefit of state planning & intervention
• Churchill's 'Gestapo speech'
• Social unity - social mobility - public wanted equal society
• Cons opposition to Beveridge Report
• Lab viewed differently after war - well known, experienced & effient
• Forces pro-labour
• 20% new voters   
• Recovered form 1931 disaster

Conservatives 

• Cons 'Mr Churchills Declaration to the Voters' - uninspiring
• Overconfident of victory - spent less money
• Focused too much on Churchills personallty
• Tours of Britain > popularity slightly
• Voters saw difference between wartime leader & untrustworthy Con leader - too old - 70
• Didn't adapt wartime speeches - focused on histroic events instead of relevant policies

Labour

• 'Let's Face The Future' 
• Had > agents in constituencies - TUists involved
• Focused on domestic policies 
• Recovered form 1931 disaster

• Loans from US -  
  • $ strong currency 
  • needed to pay for imports
• Rationing
  • Intesified - limit imports 
  • 1948 rations lower than in war
  • Livining standards kept down - 'austerity'
  • Focus on producing exports to earn $s
• Exports
  • More exports to US = more $s
  • needed to close '$ gap'
• Exchange Controls
  • prevented foreigners withdrawing money from B
  • Limited use of $s abroad by Brits 
  • stopped waste of $s

• Switching to peacetime production
  • govt controls to allocate materials 
  • regional policly - opened new factoires in drepressed areas
  • controls on prices & wage kept
• Planning & employment
  • State planning to support exports & full employment
  • Nationalistion; coal, steel & B of E
  • rationing - able to control allocation of labour & materials - prioty to exports
  • used taxes, interest rates & budget to stimulates economy & avoid inflation + unemployment 
  • Agriculture - subsidies & guranteed prices
• New international economic system
  • coop with US to build new economy - World Bank & IMF
  • Meeting of economic experts in Bretton Woods, US 1944
  • General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - aimed to reg trade & stop depression  

• Got help from US - $3,7000 mill 50 year loan Dec 1945 - Keynes
• Got help from Canada - $1,500 mill - easier terms
• Bevin got B biggest share of Marshall Aid 1948 - crucial
• Exports increased 80% 1946-50 - 1950 - 50% higher than 1937
• Car industry production X2ed
• Devauling £ reduced trade defacit with US
• 1951 Balance of payments better than 1945
• Kept rates,inflation & wage cuts low  
• Producing > home grown food - imports <ed
• Agriculture production >ed
• 1/2 factories built 1945-51 in depressed areas
• 'Export or die' campaign - full production
• 1945-50 - real wages rose 1% - inflation rose <3%
• Agriculture subsiduries
• Nationalisation - 20% industry state controlled

• Had to pay interest on US loan & make £ convertible to $
• Had to dismantle 1932 import system & accept US imports
• Loans too small - ran out in 1947
• Dalton had to allow Brits to convert sterling to $s - B of E not enough $s - convertability suspended after a month - shook confidence of govt - B dependant on US loans
• Fuel crisis 1947 - bad winter - villages cut off - no coal tranported & no stockpiles - indutrty halted - coal exports <ed 20% & unemployment >ed 2 mill
• 1948 - control <ing enterpise - lifted 1949-1950
• 1949 payment crisis - US recesion - <ed demand for exports - Cripps <ed exchange rate - £ worth $2.80 - $4.03 B4
• Korean War 1950 - B rearmed - >ed imports - balance of payments crisis

• Reforms 1945-8 formed basis
• Welfare provision still poor
• 1000's workers not on National Insurance Scheme
• 40,000 workers had no unemployment benefit - fell back on Poor Law 1834
• No guarantee of Emergency Health Scheme continuing - no free healthcare
• Labour committied to providing free education + health service & abolishing Poor Law + means test
• Sense of community war -  Brits saw need for fair society - need to win the peace
• Brits didnt want 1930s repeated
• widespread support of Beveridge report  

• Little opposition
• Civil aviation associated with state 1920s
• B of E already govt's bank
• Cons opposed coal & steel - argued they would run < efficiently - denationalisied 1951
• 1946-51 - 20% entreprises & 10% workforce state controlled
• owned most of fuel + power production, steel, transport & B of E 
• gas & electricity expanded
• growth in civil aviation & cable + wireless communication
• electrification extended
• Cons only reversed coal & steel 1950s & electricity 1980s
• Cost £2700 mill -  private owners compensation
• some unprofiting - needed subsiduries
• workers not involved in decisions - coal had same managers 
• Competition - coal vs electricity
• little improment in pay & conditions
• Mixed economy - B no longer 100% capitalist - step towards > socialist B - social need not private gain
• based on 'public corporations' 1930s -  socialist 'worker control' demand ignored
• 1947 - slowed down - belief <ed

• Housing
  • 1.5 mill house & 1/4 mill pre-fabricated temporary dwellings 
  • 1946 New Towns Act - major new towns built around London to house bombing victims e.g Stevenage 1946
  • Town and Countryside Act - made LAs to plan development & created green belt
• 1946 National Insurance Act
  • Applied NI to all workers
  • Weekly payment from worker & employer
  • Provided unemployment & sickness benefit, maternity grants, death grants, widow allowances, orphan allowances & pensions
• 1946 Industrial Injuries Act
  • Universal - wider compensation for work-related illness & injuries
  • 6 month injuriy benefit, disability benefit for permanent injuries, & death benefits for dead workers families
  • Tribunals set up to assess cases
• 1948 National Assistance Act
  • Provided help for destitute & ended Poor Law - transfered responsibility from local to central govt
  • National Assitance Board gave benefits & LAs forced to house homeless

• Parliament act 1946 - disscused for 7ral years
• 1945 - only workers got certain free healthcare 
• Doctor bills expensive - poor unable to pay - mothers neglected own health to care for children - dieseases diagnosed too late / not treated properly
• Aneurvin Bevan wanted to create national health service that offered free healthcare to everyone
• Principles had support but Bevan had to fight to get it established
• Opposed by Cons - too socialist - easily overcome by Lab majority in parliament
• Opposed by BMA - doctors self-employed & earning high fees - didnt want state control - no independance
• Bevan & BMA compromised - doctors working for NHS could have private patients + NHS hospitals would have some private wards
• Doctor given central role in admin
• Doctors payed most of salary from state & rest from each patient treated
• Established 5 July 1948
• Provided immediate medical help without financial obstical
• Improvment in health of B 1st few years
• Infant mortatlity + dieseases e.g. TB  already <ing & living standards >ing B4 NHS - >ed housing + employment & better diet 

• NHS
  • 187,000 prescriptions in 1st year - 5.25 mill glasses
  • 8,5 mill dental patients
  • Poor mothers with big families had regular healthcare
  • Widely accepted - 95% population enrolled
  • 88% doctors & 95% dentists joined
  • 1951 - Admired in W Europe
• Reform programme
  • Gave benefit to WC mothers
  • Adopted 'tripartite' model in 2ndary education -  WC 11 years olds could get scholarships to grammer schools if academic or go to technical college or normal 2ndary school
  • Big improvement on welfare system B4 war
  • Lasted until 1980s - basis of modern system
  • Rowntree's 3rd survey 1950 - only 2% in primary poverty - 10% 1899 

• Bevan had to comprimise on NHS
• No central admin system - 163 local councils for general practice & 19 regional boards for hospitals
• Shortage of staff - 10,000 dentists for 47 mill 1948
• 1st local health centre not opened til 1952
• Large regional variations in level of care
• Spending X2ed 1948-51 
• 1951 crisis - prescriptions + some treatment no longer free - Bevan resigned
• welfare low - poverty not ended
• National Assistance Board uses means test
• Compensation claims for illnesses hard to prove
• Less housebuilding - couldn't build > than 200,000 p.a. til 1948 - had to suspend building of private MC houses 
• Tripartite system left many children feeling like failures 
• Technical colleges neglected
• Secondary schools never as prestigious as grammar schools
• Private schools not abolished - many Labs disappointed - felt class still had too much influence on education

• Election 1950 - majority fell to 5 seats
• Attle forced to call election 1951 - Cons won - 321 vs Labs 295
• Timing - held in Feb 1951 & economy didnt improve until a few months later
• Voters influenced by devaluaton - humiliating 
• 1951 - economy faultering again - Korean War - economy improved 1952
• Internal divisions - prescription charges & rearmament - Bevan argued with Hugh Gaitskell
• Bevanites thought Attle too influenced by US Cold War policies
• Voters tired of control, rationing & austerity - wanted change
• Leaders under too much strain - seen as exhausted & ill - not capable of running govt for another 5 years
• Revival of Conservative Party
• Wooton reorganised eletoral machine & started fundraising scheme - new membership drive
• Exploited Labs failures & opposed nationalisation of coal & steel
• Promised to keep other nationalisaton, reforms & NHS
• Promised to build 300,000 houses p.a - attractive policy - housing shortage
• Labs in political wilderness until 1964