The war had played a crucial role in Labour’s 1945 victory, by bringing them into the public eye - they were left effectively to their own devices to rule the homefront as Churchill struggled on with the war effort. Atlee became the deputy Prime Minister during the war. In addition, Morrison became Home Secretary and Bevin Minister of Labour and National Service. Positions like these allowed the Labour MPs to prove that they were, in fact, very skilled and also gave them invaluable experience. Before the war, Labour were all too often seen as inexperienced and even unpatriotic due to their left wing ideologies. Their wartime experience in government was critical in catalysing trust and support for the party and its MPs who had proven themselves.
Developments during the war made a considerable contribution towards the shift to the left, with more support for collectivism and rationing. Dunkirk triggered many people to blame the conservatives and their previous leaders for appeasement. Paul Addison argues that “1940 was the year when the foundations of political power shifted decisively leftwards for a decade … By the autumn of 1942 a major upheaval in public opinion had taken place.” People had lost trust in the conservatives and blamed them for Britain’s military short-comings, and this was important for Labour’s rise in support. Homefront experiences had also caused a rise in support for Labour: evacuees educated many people to the realities of poverty in Britain's cities and the Blitz brought people together in communal bomb shelters and broke down social barriers. The Blitz also, more obviously, caused a huge rise in support for Labour's housing development plans. This “people's war” was very beneficial to Labour in warming people to socialist ideologies, and their belief on the war being “...not just a fight against the fascist Germany, but a struggle for a prosperous post-war Britain” was welcomed by the electorate. The need for a better post war Britain was felt amongst all classes and Labour's support of the Beveridge Report brought widespread support.
The 1942 Beveridge Report was the most important report that contributed to Labour's success in 1945. Greenwood, a Labour Politician, commissioned Beveridge to produce a report outlining a socio-economic strategy of post-war reconstruction. Outlined in the report were: all working age people would pay a National Insurance tax, and Benefits would be paid to the sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge aimed to create a minimum standard of living and full employment and believed the five evils blocking these aims and reconstruction were: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. To achieve these aims he argued that there needed to be better cooperation between the state and the individual. The report was met by huge public enthusiasm and Labour's wholehearted backing. The Conservatives, on the other hand, met the report with lukewarm support, disliking Nationalisation and the Welfare State. The Conservatives reluctance to accept this report was hugely beneficial to Labour who capitalised on the huge of public support behind it.
The campaign is all too often seen as the most important factor in Labour's “landslide” victory in 1945, however it is of less importance than the war or their policies, for example. Indeed, Robert Pearce claims “it seems very unlikely indeed that the campaign was crucial”. Paul Addison, however, argues that the campaign was important because “Attlee's reputation rose during the 1945 electoral campaign”. Nevertheless, the war was clearly more important in raising Atlee's reputation among Britons because Attlee was effectively completely in charge of the homefront for the duration of the war. Morisson, the Deputy Prime Minister, believed that “The very honesty and simplicity of the campaign helped enormously”. While it cannot be disputed that Labour kept their campaign simple, it would be ill-advised to declare that it helped enormously. Most obviously, because the campaign’s importance is overshadowed by the larger, more influential issues. The Conservatives' campaign focused on Churchill and international relationships rather than any major new reforms that the electorate so desperately wanted. The party's manifesto was named “Mr Churchill's Declaration of Policy to the Electorate”, in the hope of taking advantage of Churchill's huge popularity. Churchill however made a gross error in saying that Labour would need a Gestapo like organisation to enforce socialism upon Britain. Atlee used this as an opportunity to emphasise that although Churchill was a great wartime leader he was not such a good domestic politician. Labour's manifesto was based around the Beveridge report and the Nationalisation of industries, ideas that had been tested during the war and were found to work. Named “ Let Us Face the Future”, it emphasised that Labour were the only party that could be trusted to deliver a strong Britain and Beveridge's plans. Labour's campaign, although not crucial to their success, was better organised, funded and planned than the Conservatives' and, as such, made Labour look strong - in contrast with the Conservatives.
After gaining such a large majority in 1945, most Labour politicians felt relatively assured that they had at least 10 years in office secured. This led to complacency with Labour relying too heavily on support from voters who felt betrayed. Labour entered the 1950 election confidently, while the conservatives were uncertain of themselves, effectively a role reversal from 1945. However, in 1950, Labour won by a tiny majority of 5 seats and in 1951 the Conservatives won by a majority of 17. This was an admittedly small majority, but reflected a changing public mood. Labour would not again form a government until 1964, the question is; what caused people to revert back to supporting the conservatives once again?
Labour had made so many promises before the 1945 election that people’s hopes were set too high, many felt that Labour failed to deliver. After the First World War, the Lloyd George Coalition had made many empty promises concerning reconstruction. While this gave them a temporary boost in the polls, it did nothing but hinder them in the long term. Similarly, Labour simply made too many promises that were out of their reach, however they did fulfil most of their promises. The electorate clearly did not see it this way though, believing that the Labour party had lied to them, this feeling of betrayal saw many voters return to the “reliable” Conservatives in the 1951 election.
Although Labour’s promises had brought about hopes and expectations that were simply unachievable, whilst in government Labour had brought about serious change and a number of reforms. The labour Government of 1945-51 passed, in total, 347 acts of parliament. These acts included the reforms set out in the Beveridge plan, various other reforms and nationalisation. Most significantly, Labour established the NHS in 1948, they also brought about various other reforms pertaining to welfare. These reforms had a deep effect on Britain, however the electorate evidently felt not enough was done to fulfil the promises of a near “utopian” post-war Britain. They also caused higher taxes, and the unstable economy caused many voters to demonise labour in 1951. Labour's popularity was also dented by their foreign policy, in granting sovereignty to some of Britain's most successful colonies Labour were seen as dissembling an empire that had taken hundreds of years to attain. Labour gave independence to India, Pakistan, Ceylon and Burma, and pulled out of Palestine. Labour argued that they had earned their independence by fighting in WW2, and that it was not economically viable to sustain them. However, the electorate did not empathise with this view, many now believing that the Conservatives were a more trustworthy option.
Economically the Labour government of 45-51 struggled, with the electorate all too aware of he post-war shortages, the continuing rationing, increased taxes, and the general dislike of austerity – the feeling of being “under the thumb” of the Americans. These problems, however, would have been inherent to any government of Britain at the time, but the fact was, Labour were held accountable. The economy's recovery was further hindered by the short-sighted “need” to remain a world power. This aim was ill-fated and in the eyes of many economists “obviously exceeded the country's economic capacity”. Britain’s economic resources were being drained from all directions; Foreign Policy, Nationalisation, Welfare and Austerity. This was at a time when the economy could least handle it, and Labour was blamed by a weary public in 1951.
In 1945 the Conservatives had suffered from being divided and disorganised, while Labour had been strong and united. By 1951, however, their roles had reversed. The Labour party had suffered after 10 years in government, and their MPs had begun falling ill, some even dying. Labour Fundamentalists including Bevan wanted further reforms, specifically more nationalisation – meanwhile Morrison called for party unity. This split caused to distinct groups to form within Labour; the Bevanites and the Gaitsgillites. The Bevanites, being more left-wing, wanted to focus Britain’s resources on further nationalisation of industry. While the more right-wing Gaitsgillites wanted more concentration on an aggressive foreign policy on issues like the cold war. The split ran deep within the Labour party and consequently it was deeply weakened, so when it came to the 1951 election, Labour found it much harder to fight against the now united Conservatives who had been re-organisation under a new leader. After the shock of the 1945 election, Labour appointed Lord Woolton as their party chairman: he was central to the revitalisation of the Conservatives and reorganised the conservative party effectively. He set in motion key reforms to wipe out the image of the Conservative party being upper class elitists who do not understand the people that had been so prevalent in the last election. These party reforms and the reorganisation proved worthwhile, as can be seen in the 8% boost in votes. Also the Conservatives were much better funded in 1951, by business men afraid of further nationalisation – the only major labour reform that the Conservatives dared to take a firm stance against.
In 1951 Labour attained 48.8% of the vote, and the Conservatives only got 48% of the vote. Yet, despite this they won 26 more seats than Labour, this seems somewhat disproportionate and illogical and can once again be traced back to the first-past-the-post system. The first-past-the-post system played a key role in both winning Labour the vote in 1945 and losing it in 1951. What seems stingingly ironic is that in 1951 the Labour party actually received the largest percentage of the vote than any other party had in Britain's history and still lost the election.
The first-past-the-post system ensures that the elected government has a workable majority. The term was coined from a particular type of horse racing wherein the winning horse passes the final “post” and all the others are disqualified. How this translates to an election is that only the votes for the winning candidate in each constituency are counted towards seats in parliament. This type of system naturally leads one to question the truth behind calling the Labour victory a “landslide”. Granted, in 45 Labour obviously won a landslide of the seats, but a majority of 8% is far from a landslide of the votes.
WW2 obviously played a large role in the results of both the 1945 and 1951 elections, in 1945 its effects were clear on the homefront as it had acted as a catalyst to socialist ideas and in 1951 it was the economic turmoil that the war had triggered which led to many people to vote for the “reliable” conservatives. The state of the economy had contributed to both elections also – 1945 voters remembered the conservative led crippled economy of the 1930s; and in 1951 voters judged labour on the struggling economy of the time. Each party's history had a role in both 1951 and 45, the conservative led National Government of the 1930s were blamed for the depression, appeasement and delayed rearmament in 1945. Whilst in 1951 the Labour government was punished for its unrealistic promises made in 1945. Also in both cases the campaigns were of negligible importance. Although interesting they had little to do with shifting the electorate's opinions, indeed in 1945 both parties' campaigns were largely improvised. Certainly a major factor in the 1951 election was the redrawing of constituency boundaries, which dwarfs in significance the factors which should have mattered – indeed electoral systems were crucial to both elections. The first-past-the-post system emphasised each election's result. In 1951 labour actually polled more votes than the conservatives and in 1945 Labour only polled 8% more than the Conservatives yet gained a landslide of seats. Overall, it was the first-past-the-post system that won Labour their 'landslide' victory in 1945 and in 1951 allowed the Conservatives to win despite polling less votes.
