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Historic Elections: The 1945 General Election and Attlee's Welfare Revolution
0 Playsin 13 hours
Ethan Reuter speaks with Professor Stephen Fielding, Emeritus Professor of Political History at the University of Nottingham, about the 1964 general election that brought Harold Wilson's Labour Party to power after thirteen years of Conservative rule.
The conversation explores the context of Britain's economic decline, the Profumo affair, and the modernising rhetoric of Wilson's "white heat of technology" speech, while examining whether the election truly delivered the transformational change it promised.
From Alec Douglas-Home's aristocratic disadvantage in the television age to the racist campaign in Smethwick, and from the Liberals' surge to Labour's wafer-thin majority of four seats, this episode unpacks one of the closest elections in modern British history and questions whether its legacy matches its reputation.
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Transcript
Introduction to the 1945 UK Election
00:00:10
Speaker
And welcome back to the Observations podcast, brought to you by Democracy Volunteers. My name is Ethan Reuter, and in today's episode, we'll be talking about the 1945 general election, where Britain, with victory secured in Europe, voted not for Churchill and his cigar smoke and wartime rallies, but for Attlee, hospitals, homes, and a blueprint for the welfare state.
00:00:31
Speaker
I'm delighted to be joined today by Stephen Fielding, who is an Emeritus Professor of Political History at the University of Nostrum. Stephen, welcome to the show and thank you for being here. Well, thank you for asking
Public Sentiment Before the Election
00:00:42
Speaker
me. I'd like to start off by asking what was the mood of the country heading into the 1945 election immediately post-war?
00:00:53
Speaker
Well, there was, I think, a general hope for change, a general hope that britain the Britain that would eventually emerge out of out of war would be, in some respects, significantly different um from the one that went into the war in in September 1939. There was also some trepidation that that that that hope for change would not be lived up to.
00:01:16
Speaker
and there was there's some degree of cynicism. So I suppose, um like like many elections, but but maybe it was particularly acute um in 1945, there was a mixture of of hope, and but also cynicism about about the capacity and the desire of politicians in the in the two main parties to to change Britain for the better.
00:01:41
Speaker
And
Labour's Progressive Coalition Policies
00:01:43
Speaker
You've written about the hope and cynicism before, and also about an almost Labour consensus forming during the war and going into the election. What do you mean by that Well, it was it wasn't specifically Labour consensus. It was um ah in during the course of the war um within both in terms of popular politics, but also in terms of elite politics. There were like two sort of different things possibly going on. Labour had been in in the coalition, in in a coalition with the Conservatives as well as some Liberals. um since 1940. And during the course of that period, um had kind of nudged policy in certain directions that Labour had been talking about well before the Second World War. But many other people have been talking about, liberals have been talking about since before the First World War. um in terms of bringing government into um and into into policy and um in a much greater way. And beneath that, there was kind of almost visceral um hope that the sacrifices that most people were being forced to undertake during the war would have some positive outcome. So there's kind of like two levels going on. And in 1945, they kind of all came together.
00:03:02
Speaker
And how did the experience of that coalition government shape the party dynamics heading into the election? Well, i think it did I think it did two things. um the first The first was quite important, which was when during the campaign, um Churchill tried to turn it into a sort of Labour scare.
00:03:26
Speaker
um the The scare just didn't really work anymore because Labour politicians had been in government since 1940 and had been you know presented a fairly fairly low profile, certainly compared to Churchill, but a sort of sensible profile. um And they'd been talking about policies that many, many British people actually wanted as well during during this time. they They were seen as being on the right side in terms of how Britain should be changed. So there was no there was no wasn't great capacity to scare people away from voting labourers. There was definitely before the Second World War. um But also it gave Labour a platform within government itself to nudge policy in certain directions, not totally to its own ground, um but to a sort of progressive ground that would um that encompassed Liberals as well as Labour people and and some moderate Conservatives as well. um
00:04:26
Speaker
And there was a broad agreement between elements in in the two main parties, even before the election, on on certain areas of policy. Now, we we don't know what would have happened if the Conservatives had won, but at least there was some areas of agreement. And Labour was part of that. So I think that
Conservative Distrust and Pre-War Failures
00:04:43
Speaker
helped Labour as well.
00:04:47
Speaker
It certainly springs in the era of consensus politics. How did the memories of pre-war Conservative Party weigh on the Conservative brand, especially after winning the war in 1945?
00:05:03
Speaker
Well, it's kind it's kind of remarkable, really, because um that there was a transformation. And, ah you know, i mean, in so some people argue that in 1945, it was kind of like anti-conservative feeling that swept Labour in rather than a positive Labour feeling. Again, like in all general elections, there's a mixture of a rejection and an acceptance of the new, a rejection of the old and acceptance of the new. um But certainly... um
Impact of the Beveridge Report
00:05:28
Speaker
Had there been a general election in 1940, had there been no war, um Gallup, I mean, this is an era of when opinion polls are are first being taken and opinion polls with some some degree of accuracy, far as we can tell. But Gallup um in 1939 asked people who who they vote for if there was an election in 1940. And the Conservative-led coalition, the national government, would have easily would have easily won. But but within within about a year or two of the war, certainly from 1940, that flipped. um the idea The idea that you could trust the Conservatives with national defence, with looking after the nation, you know, ah kind of went out of the window um because all all the kind of strengths and virtues that the Conservatives had traditionally had in terms of patriotism, you know, defence, looking after the national security and whatever,
00:06:23
Speaker
out of the window um with Dunkirk when Britain, and it's it's hard to sort of really realise how close Britain came to defeat and how closely the Conservatives and the Conservative regime ah regimes of the 1930s were seen to blame for that as far as the public concerned. So um if if we want to talk about...
00:06:47
Speaker
um party brands although nobody did in in those days it it was um hugely damaged um in an almost unique way by 1945. and finally
Election Dynamics and Churchill's Challenges
00:07:02
Speaker
we'd be remiss to in talking about the starting context without mentioning beverage reports what were the five giants and what do i mean when i talk about the report Well, the the beverage the beverage report, which came out in December 1942, which is itself an important time because it was at that kind of that was like ah a junction point where
00:07:24
Speaker
by the end of 1942 there was no doubt that the Germans and the the Germans were not going to win the war it was now just a question of how long it would take to win the war right and and it was at that point when people began to think given that you know because Stalingrad had happened El Alamein had happened um the Germans were being kicked out of of of Africa the Americans were ah becoming materially significant in terms of the prosecution of the war people began to think more clearly about, well, what do we want to come out of this war? You know, all the sacrifices that, you know, people have died, people have been bombed, the houses have been destroyed, people have been conscripted into the army, conscripted into factories, into mines, you know, everybody's lives had been completely turned upside down. What are we going to get out of this? Are we going to go back um to the unemployment and the insecurity of the pre-war period? And Beveridge came at that moment. And in a sense, i mean he talked about we've got, i mean, in a sense, it was the Beveridge report was meant to be simply how do we rationalise social security and welfare, you know, in a post-war period. It was almost an administrative um sort of exercise. But he he took it and he he did it in that way. You know, he he outlined the need for a cradle to grave system. But he also talked in more expansive terms, which actually echoed what a lot of people had been already thinking. So we kind of articulated it and gave it um a focus about the need to tackle the the five evils. mean, it's all very rhetorical of this, but disease, want, squalor, ignorance. You know we all want to tackle ignorance um and idleness, you know, unemployment. So it was basically... um
00:09:11
Speaker
an outline in in kind of like vague terms in some instances, but in some specific terms in terms of social security, about what needed to be done. and And that found an echo in in what people were already starting to think. And it became a focus four for what Britain, what the kind of Britain that many people wanted to emerge. And and the important thing was the Conservatives, so far as the Beveridge report were concerned, went, yeah, you know, well, nice, but can we afford it And all of that. Labour made it very clear it was pro-beverage. And I think it was something like 90% of the British public wanted beverage to be implemented. So Labour was on the right side of the British public. The Conservatives weren't.
00:09:58
Speaker
And before the election, what is the mechanics that we go through that those power decide that they want an election in 1945? is then the time? why is then the time Well, um there was there was some dispute about it because um the coalition government that had been formed um in in the spring of 1940, which included Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberals, um there was a point at which... um
00:10:29
Speaker
In early 1945, it was clear Germany was was going to collapse. It was a matter of time before Japan. um You know, this is before the dropping of the two atomic bombs. the The war the Pacific was going to take a bit more time, but the war in Europe was going to go, you know, pretty ended pretty soon. um And the conservative Churchill wanted the coalition to continue um until Japan had been defeated. but But the Labour Party, people in the Labour Party, were very they didn't trust Churchill. and Some in the party saw Churchill as a vaguely fascistic and kind of character that they wanted to get out of the coalition as soon as they possibly could. And so...
00:11:11
Speaker
um Churchill, um well, Atlee basically said, we are going to leave the coalition before you know the war is properly over. um so there was So Churchill tried to use that against Labour. And he continued what was still referred to as a national government with some liberals. um So it was a it was a very unusual um kind of process. It's not one that we've had very often at the end of the First World War, you know, when when the coalition came to an end. But so yes, it went once Labour decided it wanted to leave the coalition, um then a general election was really imminent. um i mean, there hadn't been a general election since 1935 for over years. so it was long overdue.
00:11:56
Speaker
And you touched there on Labour's desire, partly because of Churchill's personality, to get out of the coalition. What was Churchill's personality and how did his personality impact the campaign?
00:12:11
Speaker
Well, Churchill's a very odd person, obviously. so And he's also a very... A man of his time, a kind of late Victorian, early you so edward Edwardian figure. um One who... um i mean, he's...
00:12:26
Speaker
He's very, very, of his very, it's hard to actually but be very clear about church because he he looks in all kinds of different directions. When, when you know, some Labour people saw him as a kind of vaguely fascistic figure, authoritarian, very right wing. um He was also mistrusted and conservative and and the conservative benches as somebody wasn't really a conservative, who who might might might be giving ah away things too much to the left. um I mean, he was only very, they only very reluctantly like um elected him leader. And that was only because Neville Chamberlain died of lung cancer. um
00:13:04
Speaker
had he lived, Churchill would have been prime minister, but not leader of the Conservative Party. So he was
Public Desires for Post-War Britain
00:13:10
Speaker
kind of mistrusted by all sides. um and yet and And yet, at that that particular moment in 1940, when he first became prime minister, when it was possible that maybe some in the elite wanted to you know have some sort of deal with with Hitler, he became this national symbol of resistance. Right. um And that that that made him very popular in terms of that kind of presidential sort of a figure that was almost above parties, as a kind of symbol of of national resistance.
00:13:44
Speaker
um You know, he he had approval ratings usually of about 80 percent during during the war. So you can't really argue with that. But he was also um someone who whose rhetorical flushes flourishes would take him in all kinds of different directions. you wind up and And a bit like, and the Boris Johnson would would would like to have compared himself to Churchill, but in ah in one sense, there was a comparison that his words would often go in directions he didn't necessarily mean. um So he was, yeah, a bit bit of a strange...
00:14:17
Speaker
character really in terms of the two the two parties but he but like I say there was a lot of mistrust certainly on the left and you know during the campaign itself he which he and many people the Conservative Party thought would turn into because everybody loved Churchill because it's national resistance role that he played that that would just get the Conservative Party you know on his coattails um and had it been had the election been a presidential he would probably have won it But it wasn't presidential. He was leader of the Conservative Party and many people didn't trust the Conservative Party. He got booed at at rallies during during the course of of the election. And when in certain places like in South Wales, very strongly, you know, miners with some bitter experiences um in the 1920s with the general strike, when one conservative When he appeared on on news on the newsreel during the campaign, again, he was booed. So there was some bitter feelings about him. um Although some some people on the right um thought, you know, he could do no wrong.
00:15:20
Speaker
And from public trust and approval with a sense of distrust as well, who was Attlee in comparison? Well, nobody really knew who Attlee was, right? Attlee had been deputy prime minister during the course of the um of the coalition and had done a lot of work on the domestic front and had taken policy in a certain area that Labour would then implement um when it got when he got into government. So he played a very important role behind the scenes. But when people were asked sort of in 1942 in polls, who would you like to be prime minister, um you know, after the war, after with with the general election? um It was either Churchill or Anthony Eden who were like the two the two figures, Anthony Eden being the foreign secretary of of the coalition, and a conservative, quite a moderate conservative in actual fact, certainly more moderate than than Churchill turned out to be.
00:16:16
Speaker
But um very few people mentioned Attlee or anybody else you know on the Labour front bench. So in a sense, he wasn't a known quantity and um he didn't seem to threaten anybody. Maybe that was important. You know, you it would be very hard to for conservative propagandists to sort of say that Clement Attlee was a kind of modern robespierre. He was going to hang the rich, you know, from the lampposts. mean, he was a very he was from the upper classes himself. He spoke like like like ah like an officer, which he had been during the the First World War, very clip tones. So maybe as a maybe it's a kind of reassuring figure and because Labour had never been in government with a majority. And the last Labour government had been a disaster, frankly, when when it collapsed in 1931. So maybe it's a kind of and a sort semi anonymous reassuring figure that might have done Labour some good, at least with certain kind of middle class voters, which did prove to be important in terms of giving Labour its big majority.
00:17:20
Speaker
And Churchill is known, as you said, as a great wartime leader. What do you think the country was looking for from a leadership perspective for peace?
00:17:32
Speaker
Well, um I mean, if you if you believe some of the rhetoric that labour but Labour was coming out with, you know, it was about a new Jerusalem, a new Britain and looking forward, you know, with with great idealism towards, you know, a bright a bright future. But I think at the heart of it, think most people wanted a kind of better 1938.
00:17:51
Speaker
They wanted recognisable Britain, but without the mass unemployment and the insecurity that that that that bred. um They wanted a Britain with with ah with ah with a health service that it didn't matter how poor you were, you would get treated, which that that was a really significant issue in in many families, not not just working class families, but lower middle class families. If you were ill, you know how are you going to pay for it? Because also you won't be able to work. So some kind of security...
00:18:21
Speaker
um There weren't, i mean, Beverage, the Beverage report outlined this cradle to grave social security scheme, but the the benefits weren't exactly, you know, people weren't going to get rich on these benefits. They were deliberately sort of um pegged. So it wouldn't mean that people...
00:18:39
Speaker
could live on social security rather than go for work. But some, they weren't as more secure, as safer, so far as they were concerned, safer 1938, but a recognisable Britain. there weren't there didn't There weren't that many people that wanted a new radical socialist Britain.
00:18:57
Speaker
um which some people in the Labour Party obviously wanted. um But as I say, a better
Housing as a Voter Priority
00:19:03
Speaker
1938, that was a massive advance on how many people would have experienced their lives in in the 1930s.
00:19:12
Speaker
And touching on that of a better 1938, what were the party's main policy points and why did the country choose Labour for the 1938 principle?
00:19:26
Speaker
well um
00:19:29
Speaker
there There was an attempt. I mean, both both parties kind of, and it but it was more the Conservatives and Labour. Both parties sort of um kind of presented um themselves in in kind of ideological terms, but more the Conservatives and to to their detriment as well. um I mean, it's Churchill is infamous for a speech he gave on um on the radio when he accused, that like said that Labour would have to rely on some kind of Gestapo to get its policies through. Right.
00:20:01
Speaker
and And that, um you know, we can talk about what, you know, how people read that. But that was based on the idea that because, you know, during the war, the state government had increased intruded into all kinds of areas of people's lives, um some of which irritated people, but many of which actually people you know liked and wanted to be made permanent um in terms like a National Health Service, for example. um but But the Conservatives wanted to take things back. They they they said basically, government you can't really trust government. If you want a better Britain, we all do. um
00:20:37
Speaker
We need private enterprise to get us out of this mess. You can't trust government. It's kind of an old style conservative message that would have been very familiar to people um in the 1930s and 1920s. And a big government was a threat to people's liberties and freedoms. That's where Churchill was kind of coming from by by saying Labour would have go on Gestapo. And and while Labour was um clearly in favour in making permanent many of the advances of government in people's lives that had necessity
00:21:07
Speaker
by necessity had had occurred during the war. They were kind of making things, they they were they were like the Conservative Party with a small c. they were They were going to make things permanent that had already happened. The Conservatives wanted to take things back.
00:21:20
Speaker
um And in making this argument, Labour, there are some people in the Labour Party who say, yes, government is better than the private enterprise in all these different ways. But for the most part, they made very pragmatic arguments.
00:21:32
Speaker
arguments for what the Conservatives said were ah an ideological advance of government. So there was that that was kind of like going on. But so far as most ordinary people concerned, it wasn't about ideology. It was about Housing. that That was, I think, over 60%.
00:21:52
Speaker
When people are asked what's what's the most important issue during this election, six over 60% said housing. People just wanted, you know, well, there'd been a lot of bombing, but even before the war, um housing was was some horrible you know slums and whatever, and nothing was really being done. So it's, you know, sorting out housing. and that That was the issue. It was like concrete... issues that people were concerned about. Having a job, having a home, right having a sense of security, if you will, very specific, concrete things. And Labour associated itself with saying we are going to do things about that through government. And the cons Conservatives were asking questions. Well, can we afford it? if We should really leave it to the private sector. And that these were not questions that certainly a significant sort of movement of of people thought was happening.
00:22:43
Speaker
They just didn't trust the Conservatives, really.
00:22:49
Speaker
And you touched on housing and more practical issues and everyday material issues. Would you say that this is part of the reason why foreign policy didn't play as much of a role in the campaign?
00:23:04
Speaker
Whenever does foreign policy play a role in a British election campaign? um
Churchill's Missteps and Media Influence
00:23:10
Speaker
Hardly ever. um I mean, that that's kind of surprising, you might you might think. um But at that stage, nobody really knew what kind of configuration was going to um emerge out of the war. um you know At that point, the Soviet Union were our great friends. um And there was some talk, there was some talk, um but this was more after the election that like Labour politicians talked about, you know, left can, you know, talk to left. And some people thought, oh, that means Labour wants to have some connection with it with the Soviet Union. But um all of that was and obviously that didn't work out with the Cold War. um So, yeah, it it is quite surprising um that people really weren't talking about foreign policy. But so given given the reason why there was a war was a failure foreign policy. But that just ah that wasn't really that that wasn't really the case. um
00:24:02
Speaker
I mean, only insofar as underlying the mistrust of the conservatives was um the failure of appeasement, um which at the time in the 1930s, many people were in fact in favour of. But I think That was about it, really, in terms of how foreign policy affected people. It was just another reason for mistrusting the Conservatives.
00:24:23
Speaker
And you brought up Churchill's bombastic quote of falling back on some kind of Gestapo to implement Labour's policies. How was that taken by the public?
00:24:38
Speaker
Well, um I mean, there is evidence, some convinced conservatives actually believed it, you know, because it because what what what Churchill was doing, as I think I suggested, he was mining a certain conservative, well-worn conservative tropes about but the Labour Party, you know. um The Daily Express, which I think was still was still the the most popular newspaper and was read by lots of people in the working class, didn't talk about the Labour Party, talked about the Socialist Party, right? And, you know, socialism was connected with interference in people's lives, inefficiency, you know, probably some kind of Moscow goal going on. I mean, it worked. That kind of rhetoric worked, um you know, most famously in the and in the 1920s with the Zinoviev letter. But also but just generally, you know, socialists, you can't you can't trust them. um And so that's where he was coming from.
00:25:34
Speaker
But by this point in 1945, I mean, first of all, he's been you he's been working with many of these people um who he is saying will have to rely on some kind of Gestapo to get their their methods through. and And the other thing, it was this was just weeks and months after the full revelations from the concentration camps of what a Gestapo does.
00:26:00
Speaker
So there was kind of some disbelief and also the idea that Churchill, the great unifying national symbol of national you know resistance from 1940.
00:26:12
Speaker
He's trashed that. He's back to being Churchill, the guy who, during the general strike, wanted to send in the tanks. Right. So he kind of trashed the image that might have done him some good as and a national unity leader. But I think it was already too late. But it just confirmed people's. But those that had bad opinions about Churchill, it just confirmed that.
00:26:33
Speaker
what they thought about this crazy guy and what you might think. But but it wasn't just Churchill saying these things. The Conservative Party had had posters at the time which just said, remember Belson.
00:26:46
Speaker
which is like, what what did you think people were meant to think about that, the ji that that Clement Attlee was going to introduce concentration camps? I mean, they were quite ideologically driven, some elements in the Conservative Party in this at this time.
00:27:00
Speaker
um It might have been the start of a consensus, but they were kicking against the consensus um very late into the day. And we've touched a lot and spoken a lot about the Conservatives and the Labour Party,
00:27:16
Speaker
How impactful were the third parties, the more fringe parties that we see in the election? Well, the war, um first of all, when when the coalition was formed, um and even before the coalition was formed, um the the liberals, Labour and the Conservatives agreed to an electoral truce, not not a political truce, but an electoral truce. So if there was, if, if,
00:27:42
Speaker
If a member of parliament died or was or went into the army or was unavailable or what in in whatever way, a by-election would be held. And if it was conservative, that Labour and the Liberals wouldn't stand against them. It would be a free a free hit. Except um there were increasing number of of different parties and independents that um took the place of whoever might have have contested that. And in particular, in conservative seats,
00:28:10
Speaker
And there was in the early days of 1941, 42, there were independents that stood against the Conservatives and often did well. And in some cases actually beat the Conservatives because there was this sense that.
00:28:26
Speaker
the Conservatives had betrayed the country and and couldn't be trusted. And if Labour wasn't standing, then somebody else was going to do that. um And in the end, um there was an organisation which kind of brought together that sort of sense of discontent.
00:28:42
Speaker
And it's actually there's some elements of this feeling that are very kind of evocative of today, that politicians had let the people down. You know, how how is it that we nearly lost war? How how come we ended up with Dunkirk?
00:28:56
Speaker
The politicians let us down it's sort of a kind of they betrayed the people. There was kind of a lot of there was some anti-party, anti-politics kind of people knocking around. And it kind of formed together in this organisation called Commonwealth, which was a kind of ethical, socialist, idealist organisation, which which did win, I think, maybe three or four seats, again, in conservative, very strong conservative strongholds, um one of which was Grantham, um where young Margaret Thatcher would have been living. So it's kind of remarkable that Grantham, actually, that was an independent rather than Commonwealth, but a kind of socialist leaning, you know, um independent. and so So there was this kind of like a middle ground somewhere, this leftish, that took took the place of where maybe Labour would be. um The Liberals were part of the electoral truce, so it's hard to say what was going on there. They were part of the coalition. And then there was the Communist Party um that its membership actually increased to its highest ever um on the back of the Soviet Union, um entering the war and Stalingrad.
00:30:05
Speaker
But they ended up winning two seats in 1945. But they had a kind of modest success in in kind of established heartlands. um but But nothing great. So the two parties remained still monolithic. They lost lots. During the war, they lost lots of members. Activity on the ground went down until about 1942, 43, when they everyone would think, well, there's going to be election and in the next year or so. Germany's not going to win this war.
00:30:34
Speaker
um So there was, yeah, it it was a bit of a strange time um in terms of popular politics. There was a lot of um mistrust of the political elite because how come we ended up where we were in 1940? But most of that was focused on the Conservatives rather than Labour. But there was still some mistrust. But in the end, most people...
00:30:59
Speaker
You know, they didn't really question the two party nature of of of of British politics at that point. So they eventually returned to those two big parties.
00:31:11
Speaker
And finally, before we get into the results, what was the role of Fleet Street and the newspapers, which were still a dominant force in politics at the time?
00:31:23
Speaker
Well, as ever, um that Fleet Street was dominated by right-wing press, right? The Daily Express, sort arch-imperialist, very pro-conservative. I've i've already said it's called Labour socialist, not Labour.
00:31:40
Speaker
Crazy, I mean... crazily propagandist, pro-Churchill. I mean, Beaverbrook, Lord Beaverbrook, who owned it, had been in the cabinet as one of Churchill's ministers. um so So the media landscape hadn't really remained pro, very strongly pro pro-conservative.
00:32:00
Speaker
With without one exception, during during the war of the Daily Mirror, which was had already before the war was becoming a sort of popular tabloid, um it became much more popular and began to rival the Daily Express. And it and it had basically it rode the wave of the sort of popular sentiments about beverage and about a better tomorrow and and effectively was an arm, a prop propaganda arm of the Labour Party. i mean, the like the Labour Party had its own newspaper, the Daily Herald, which you know had ah had a decent um ah decent um sort circulation. But I think think the Daily Mirror...
00:32:37
Speaker
kind of is seen, particularly because it was read by working class people, particularly in the army, it' it's credited with at least giving Labour a platform which he wouldn't have had before the war. But this was still a pro-Tory sort of landscape to such an extent that um even though Opinion polls showed, which were weren't weren't really well trusted because it was very early days, but all opinion polls showed that from about 1942, 1943, Labour was significantly ahead of the Conservatives. But but the commentators in the right-wing press just just ignored them and and talked up the the the idea it was going to be Churchill-led Conservative victory. And that...
00:33:21
Speaker
up That partly explains why everybody was shocked when it didn't turn like that, because the right wing press today and then as well helped shape how people thought about the world and what was really going on, even though it really wasn't.
00:33:39
Speaker
And
Election Delays and Labour's Victory
00:33:40
Speaker
I want now get into the results and move away slightly from the campaign. What is so significant about why the results took so long to come?
00:33:53
Speaker
Well, Britain was still at war. um Millions of voters were in in had been were all over the place, right? um they weren't yeah People had been conscripted into factories you know where they didn't live. you know That was one reason why Grantham, for example, went went to an independent because lots of factory workers were working in Grantham. um There hadn't been factories in Grantham before the war. So there was lot of mobility. There were still soldiers... um fighting the Japanese in in the Far East. um So their votes had to be gathered in and then sent by, you know, back to their constituencies. They to be distributed to their different constituencies. um So logistically, it was something of a nightmare. And ah there was also Wakes Week, which is something that doesn't really exist anymore. So that there were different polls at different times because lots of people were on holiday in Blackpool rather than where they were living in like Preston. So um there were lots of wartime specific reasons for the delay.
00:34:55
Speaker
ah But it was like, given given that, just about three weeks or so, it was you after the official poll official poll and then the actual results being announced. So again, it was slightly unique um given the wartime, but the wartime circumstances to really explain all of that.
00:35:14
Speaker
And what were, after the three-week wait, what were the actual results that came through? Well, you have to bear in mind there hadn't been an election since 1935. So there should have been at least one other election. So this was a very long period of time um between between elections. um And well, in terms of seats, ah good we have to distinguish between in in a British general election with our peculiar first pass the post system, you have to distinguish between the the seats won and the votes won.
00:35:46
Speaker
What essentially um happened is Labour made huge, i mean, over 200 gains compared to 1935. 203 the exact number, which is obviously an enormous number of gains to make and became, um and it got a huge majority in the House of Commons. um But in terms of its sort of percentage of vote, again, it was big. It was big for Labour. It got 48% of those who voted, voted for Labour.
00:36:19
Speaker
And that's, mean, for Labour, that was huge. i mean, there have been other, prior to that, there have been other winning parties that had got around about that figure. It wasn't totally unprecedented for the winning party to get that amount. um Despite everything, the Conservatives still got 40%.
00:36:38
Speaker
um If you total up um those you might characterise as being on the left, you you put maybe Labour with the communists and there were some Commonwealth candidates and then Conservatives, most Liberals and others, it was actually much more even in terms of the share of the vote. But really the most significant thing in terms of explaining thoughts that that result is that Labour increased its support amongst the working class.
00:37:07
Speaker
Because even in the 1930s, you know, um a significant number of working class people just for other reasons of deference or they've been scared, you know, because of're socialists, you can't trust them for all kinds of reasons. You know, there was still a large conservative contingent of working class voters. Labour increased significantly its support in the working class. um But also so that I think it was like three quarters of those in industrial occupations voted Labour in 1945.
00:37:41
Speaker
And about a third or or I should say about about a quarter ah of those in sort of middle class professions did. Now, that's much less, but it's much more than it was before.
00:37:52
Speaker
So this combination of working class votes, middle class votes, a minority of middle class votes, but still a high prop proportion compared to the 1930s, delivered a whole slew of constituencies, mixed sort of constituencies, socially mixed constituencies, suburban constituencies, rural constituencies of all different types. And um And with so if you can, with first pass the post, at least historically, if you could combine your class base, you know, in Labour's case, the working class and take votes off those who might in ordinary circumstances and other circumstances be seen as more conservative inclined, you win all kinds of seats. Right.
00:38:33
Speaker
on not massive, not massive majorities, but you win them, you know, relatively, relatively neatly. So that's what happened. The, the, the electoral system first past the post gave Labour a huge majority, which in terms of the percentage of votes, it wouldn't necessarily have merited, but then you could say that about virtually every general election in Britain, um, I guess. So it wasn't, that wasn't very unusual. Yeah.
00:38:58
Speaker
Um, And one of the particular oddities that comes out of our electoral system is tactical voting. Yeah. What was the impact of tactical voting on seats distributions?
00:39:11
Speaker
Well, I think that, I mean, there is evidence, mass observation, the survey organisation, mass observation, which which was a really useful source of kind of anecdotal, but also some statistical sort of evidence as well. But anecdotally, mass observation was did interviews after after the the election. And and there is there is evidence that um there were some liberals who,
00:39:35
Speaker
Who, because everybody thought, because the right word media told them, everybody thought the Conservatives were going to win. Because Churchill, right? Everybody thought that, right? Nobody thought, you know really, Labour's going to win, even though the evidence was there, but they weren't being told this kind of stuff. You weren't told not to trust it. So on the assumption that there was going to be a conservative government, or at least that was the assumption, um some people, some like certainly some liberals um who would otherwise have voted for the liberals or maybe some maybe in certain seats might vote to conservative, voted for Labour, either to kind of like a shot across the bowels to what they assumed would be a conservative government or to reduce the majority of this conservative government. And, you know, quite quite a few people woke up um when the results were announced to discover they've got a Labour MP, even though they didn't really want to have a Labour MP. They were just a little bit, you know, bemused. So there was there there is evidence there was tactical voting, but Labour certainly didn't vote.
00:40:38
Speaker
didn't kind of seek it. I mean, Labour kept saying, if you want to have a Labour government, if you don't want to have a Conservative government, you really should just vote Labour. Don't vote communist, don't vote liberal, don't vote Commonwealth, just vote Labour. Whether people believe that or not, they, like I say, there is some evidence that because the right wing media had given everyone the assumption, the impression there would be a Tory government,
00:41:02
Speaker
the Some people did vote Labour whilst not wanting a Labour government. i mean, there is there is opinion poll evidence that when people were asked, you know, what kind of a government would you like, um irrespective of you know the electoral system, it was maybe Churchill or Eden as prime minister, but it would be a Labour, be kind of Labour led government.
00:41:24
Speaker
But with those two people as prime minister, that seemed and that there was a very big slew of people that seemed to want that. You mentioned the amusement at which some people woke up to find the results and that they had a Labour MP.
00:41:40
Speaker
Certainly Westminster, by virtue of commentators and pundits, all believing Churchill's personal popularity would bring him past the post first. What was the mood like in Westminster and how did the parties react to finding a Labour government, was meeting the king?
00:41:58
Speaker
Well, there was a lot of shock. I mean, famously, um lots of Labour cabinet men and the old woman who became cabinet ministers um after the election, many of them had actually booked their holidays for the period when they they didn't expect they'd be in government either. So they were just a little bit shocked.
00:42:19
Speaker
But when it when it started to s sink in, um i mean, it was so far as certain people in the Labour Party were concerned. This was like the road to socialism. This is kind of like the big, you know, big leap forward towards a socialist Britain. This is everything that the, gri you know, Keir Hardee, William Morris, this is what, you know, they felt as, as a future Labour leader would say, they felt the hand of history on their shoulders and they believed that really they'd cracked it. You know, this, this, we're not going back. We're just going to go forward with this once that had sunk in um because it was such an amazing result in terms of seats, but even in terms of votes for Labour, the first majority on a programme
00:43:04
Speaker
Which was, you know, um it was there was a lot of consensus around the programme. But compared to what Labour was saying and being dismissed as a party of of government before the war, this was like remarkable stuff and that they were now committed to. So, yeah, that pleasantly surprised is probably underplaying it somewhat. Amongst the Conservatives, it was just devastation, you know.
00:43:28
Speaker
um I mean, e Evelyn Waugh, he wrote Brideshead Revisited, um which came out just after, i think, the the election, just after the war. um When he was looking back on that time, said it it it felt like we were being occupied by an enemy force.
00:43:48
Speaker
you know, um how dare how dare the British people vote for these for these these people, right? um The wrong people are now in charge. yeah It was very discombobulating. And i mean, Churchill was was was apt to get very depressed. This didn't really help.
00:44:04
Speaker
I think he went into one long, great big sulk and went off to the south of France um to paint to paint pretty pictures just to, you know, That's it. So, yeah,
Long-term Impact of the 1945 Election
00:44:14
Speaker
it was it was an amazing shock, even though, like I've said, there was evidence there that there shouldn't have been a shock. It's just the right wing media constructed this this this fantasy um that this wasn't going to happen, but it did.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah. Churchill went off on on his black dog. Yeah. um How does, to to go into the aftermath, How does 1945 shape our politics?
00:44:46
Speaker
Well, it it was quite it was quite important in in one... Well, in in another world it was very important in a number of senses, but um there was a lot of cynicism um during during the campaign. um the The terrible near defeat at Dunkirk, um the appalling foreign policy mistakes of appeasement... um had undermined many people's traditional trust in the political elite.
00:45:12
Speaker
um And and that that really hurt the Conservatives. But then a lot of people weren't quite sure about Labour. mean, they've been told all kinds of things about, you know, these socialists or the incompetent or or whatever. um And and people vote that many people vote for Labour thinking, well, they say they're going to do it. Let's just hope they do.
00:45:30
Speaker
And in actual fact, Labour virtually did everything they said they would do. They didn't quite build as many houses as they said. There are all kinds of reasons for that, but they got they were relatively close. So in a sense, Labour kind of restored some degree of trust in the political system by doing what it said it would do.
00:45:52
Speaker
and And in terms of what it actually did, um there was a broad consensus amongst certain party leaders and in Whitehall, amongst top civil servants, about what the programme would be for for for peacetime Britain. um we We don't know what the Conservatives would have done, whether they would have resiled, you know, and kind of tried to we weasel out of all kinds of things had they won. um but it it certainly massively well significantly increased the role of government in people's lives and so far as many people were concerned for the better um in terms of um cradle to the grave social security um the pursuit of full employment as a policy uh policy end um the nhs which which you know was was a really significant thing from for many people's lives. And then Labour, there was less of a consensus about this and public opinion was less supportive of it, but they went along with it because they thought it would make things better. There was a big nationalisation programme, which Labour sold not as, um this is socialism, we've got to advance the boundaries of the state into into the private sector, but
00:47:03
Speaker
most of many key areas of the British economy have been very badly, very badly run by the private in the private sector, notably the mining industry. And during the war, many of these railways, the mining industry, whatever, were taken under some kind of state direction. And and seemed to work, you know, it seemed to work better than it did before. So as a sort of pragmatic thing, many people supported it. um and And that basically set the course of British politics um until the 1970s.
00:47:37
Speaker
Reluctantly, the Conservatives were drawn into agreeing to to to keep these things going. There was a little bit of a boundary disagreement between should Should the iron and steel industry be nationalised or denationalised? You know, but essentially they saw the big defeat that they suffered in 1945 and looked at themselves and thought, well, if we don't accept 80, 90 percent of Labour's programme, we're never going to get elected ever again.
00:48:05
Speaker
So they were kind of forced into this. And and it didn't mean that they they believed it. It didn't mean that they were ideologically committed to it. They were just, like well, you know, we've got we've got to, for electoral pragmatic reasons. I mean, Margaret Thatcher clearly makes it very clear in her in ah autobo you know memoirs. She didn't like any of this. So a lot of Tories that didn't like any of this. And then when things changed, everything changed in the 1970s, they saw their opportunity to reduce and to reverse many of these things. That's what they did.
00:48:37
Speaker
So it's set the course of British politics essentially for 30 years or so. And we still have at least an NHS just about. And that is one of the most direct consequences that still live with us. And it's just about still one of the more more popular institutions um that we have.
00:48:57
Speaker
So, yeah, it's and and it's a reference point. You know, it's a reference point about what could be done. And, you know many people in the Labour Party yeah refer to 1945 as well. If we can go back to that, we can change things. i mean, that's all a bit airy fairy. But essentially, yeah, we've still got an NHS.
00:49:18
Speaker
And what are the lessons that we can take from the 1945 general election?
00:49:27
Speaker
It was such an unusual sort of context for having a general election. I mean, um had there not been um the Second World War, had there not been the the disastrous military cock ups of 1940, the Norway campaign, the fall of France, Dunkirk, had there not been disastrous, as it turned out, foreign policy appeasement,
00:49:53
Speaker
um then there may never have been a Labour government. I mean, it's it's a very, it's it's a moot, you know, just sort of counterfactual. Would ever there have been a Labour government had there not been for the Second World War? What would have happened to British politics had there not been a Second World War that transformed Britain, you know, threw people's lives up in the air and and created all kinds of new senses of what was possible and what was, you know, been everyone had been told all these things couldn't be done. And they found out, well, they can be done. And we're actually winning the war as a consequence of expanding the boundaries of the state.
00:50:25
Speaker
So I don't know if there's a a direct lesson to be to be drawn from it, other than it takes exceptional circumstances for you to get a Labour government and also a Labour government that's got popular opinion behind it to do radical things.
00:50:42
Speaker
In fact, that's the only time. but that I can think of really truly transformative you know radical things um and it took a second it took second world war to do it so um yes that would be my rather downbeat um so kind of a lesson or ah or something i would I would take from 1945 Britain is a very conservative country you it takes a war it takes a war and you to nearly lose that war as well um takes a world war
00:51:16
Speaker
Thank you for joining me. It has been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please do follow us for more. We're also available on YouTube at The Observations Podcast. And if you're already watching there, please do like, comment and subscribe. It helps us greatly against the algorithm. And thank you very much for listening to The Observations Podcast.