Another reason for the long-term power of the Conservatives was because of the way they were able to deal with the payments deficit so efficiently. On assuming office the R.A. Butler was faced by an immediate balance of payments deficit of some £700 million, inherited from his predecessor. Butler responded with a fairly savage programme of cuts – on imports especially, but also on credit, travel allowances, food subsidies, and even the meat ration. The bank rate was raised from two to four per cent, and as Excess Profits levy was imposed. By 1952 the deficit had been wiped out and a surplus of £259 million had accumulated. For the next three years there was no balance payments problem. However, this recovery was more due to external factors, particularly the end of the Korean War and a marked fall in import prices, than to his own policies.
The initial success was the prelude to a period of economic expansion. Income tax was cut later budgets in 1952 and 1953, and the bank rate was reduced; and the process of ‘setting the people free’ was widely applied. Food rationing was abolished and most wartime controls over the economy were removed in 1953-4; at the same time road haulage and the iron and the steel industry were returned to private ownership. This Conservative freedom was both a cause and a result of the sharp rise in living standards, which marked the 1950s. This was seen in the accumulation of personal savings, the increase in home ownership, and, above all, the increasing sale of consumer goods – especially cars.
Another reason for the increase in popularity of the conservative government was due to Harold Macmillan, who was the real hero of the Churchill government of 1951-55. The Conservative electoral manifesto in 1951 had pledged the party to build 300,000 houses a year, and it was this target that the new minister set himself to fulfill. It was comfortably achieved. The number of completed houses gradually increased, and reached a total of 327,000 in 1953 and 354,000 in 1954. The bulk of houses constructed under the Macmillan regime still belonged to the public sector (and their standard was slightly lower than in Bevan’s day); but the proportion of private houses built gradually increased during this period and throughout the fifties. This was helped by a relaxation of the licensing system and the controls over land, as well as by easier mortgage facilities. By the end of 1954 about 30 per cent of houses built were for private sale; by the end of the decade the figure was well over 50 per cent. It is true also that (by contrast with Labour’s housing programme) it was the better of sections of the working class and the middle class, who gained most from the government’s programme. This was a social trend that was bound to benefit the Conservative Party electorally.
Housing was not the only branch of the social services where expansion took place after 1951. As Churchill pointed out: ‘we have improved all the social services and we are spending more on them than any government at any time’. This was undoubtedly true. Expenditure on the social services under the Conservatives increased both in real terms and as a percentage of the total public spending. Labour’s accusation that the Tories were out to destroy the welfare state was clearly wide of the mark.
During the Churchill government, therefore, the Conservatives were content to accept the structure of the welfare state bequeathed to them by Labour fairly uncritically, though they also stressed the importance of private provision in the fields of housing, education, and health. It seemed that this was the attitude that the public were looking and hoping for.
On 6 April 1955 Sir Anthony Eden came into his long-awaited inheritance as Prime Minister. Eden decides to call an early election for May. Everything seemed to favour the Conservatives, as their by-election record and the opinion polls indicated. At home there was rising prosperity – helped along by Butler’s sixpence of the income tax; the end of rationing; and expanding social services, particularly in housing. Abroad, Eden as Foreign Secretary had achieved a number of outstanding diplomatic successes over Germany and western defence, Egypt and the Sudan, and the problems of South-East Asia. The Conservatives entered what turned out to be a very unexciting contest united and confident. Eden proved to be a popular and effective campaigner, particularly on television, where ‘he managed to convey a sense of calmness, optimism, decency and compassion’.
The growing popularity of the Conservative Government was one main reason for their achievement in the electoral votes, but there was also another reason for the increase in popularity for the Conservatives. This was the decreasing popularity of the Labour Government. By comparison the ageing Attlee appeared a dim and out-of-date figure, and the Labour Party itself – driven by the disputes between the Bevanites and their opponents – was incapable of mounting an effective challenge.
The electoral defeat of 1951 was followed by a long and difficult period of opposition for the Labour Party until Harold Wilson’s victory at the general election of 1964. It was a period marked by internal feuding between rival groups, the clash of personalities, and bitter disputes over policy and principles. Even before the 1951 election, disillusionment with the timid and uninspiring policies of the official Labour leadership had been growing among left-wing MPs in the House of Commons, and on a wider scale among activists in the constituencies. The development of the Bevanite movement (the rebellion against the right-wing Labour leadership), depended, in an extraordinary way, upon the political behaviour of one man Bevan. Some contemporaries have indeed seen the disputes within the Labour Party after 1951 as essentially a personal contest between Bevan and Gaitskell for the leadership succession to Clement Attlee. It was obvious to the critics as well as the general public the instability and hostility that existed within the Labour Party; all this resulted in the decline in popularity of Labour.
The Bevanites were a group of MPs who associated themselves with the ‘keep left’ movement in the 1940s. They believed in further nationalisation, but more importantly they were totally against Britain being identified too closely with American aims in foreign affairs. The Bevanites were not very successful in their aims, and Gaitskell won an overwhelming majority against Bevan and Morrison. It was felt that Morrison was to old for the post, and Bevan was mistrusted by most of his parliamentary colleagues.
The power of Gaitskell into the party was also perhaps another reason for the loss of another election for Labour. As a party leader Hugh Gaitskell displayed all those characteristics, which had helped him to rise so swiftly within the labour Party hierarchy. Though respected, he lacked the flair and the magic, which surrounded politicians such as Churchill and Bevan. Gaitskell was essentially a man of government, with little relish and talent for the tasks of parliamentary opposition.
The leader of the Conservative Government was the total opposite. Harold Macmillan dominated British politics during his years of power. Macmillan took over from Eden with Butler as his deputy. Macmillan’s ‘unflappability’ became legendary. Macmillan was in fact intensely ambitious, purposeful, and professional politician. Macmillan’s image as ‘supermac’ developed in this period as his election claim that, ‘you’ve never had it so good’ started to seem reasonable. His first priority was to rebuild the alliance with USA but he also visited Moscow in 1959. The United States helped Britain gain its own nuclear weapon. In return the US were granted unrestricted use of British bases.
