The popularity of the 1942 Beveridge Report, which laid much of the groundwork for the establishment of the NHS and the Welfare State, was an endorsement of Labour politics. The Conservatives voted against the creation of a centralised health service in 1946, preferring rather the idea of state provision of healthcare administered at local level. Conservative opposition fell off quickly, however, when the popularity of the NHS became increasingly apparent following its inception in 1946. The 1946 National Health Service Act provided free access to a range of hospital and general practitioner services across the country.
The 1946 National Insurance Act was also a key domestic reform of the Attlee government. For the first time, the government provided a catch-all benefits system which hypothecated a proportion of tax revenue thence to be paid against sickness, elderliness and unemployment to name but three key entitlements.
As a response to the housing problem, Dalton committed to building one million new homes, 80% of which were council houses to be rented cheaply to those who most needed them. Although progress was initially slow on this front, one million houses were eventually built and the housing problem was eased for a while.
This massive reform of the 1945-1946 period was dealt a blow in February 1947, when the government faced a fuel crisis. Extremely cold weather met with insufficient stockpiles of coal, and much industry ground to a halt as a result. Then, in the summer of 1947, problems arose with the US war loan to be paid to the British government, in the form of the ‘convertibility clause’. This committed the UK government to keeping the value of sterling at a stable rate against the US dollar, and this meant that the government’s hands were tied as they sought to address Britain’s balance of payments deficit by means of international trade. Instead, this 1947 balance of payments crisis – compounded by the fuel shortage and the convertibility clause – forced Labour to rein in spending. As he struggled to justify his November emergency budget tightening spending and committing to an exchange rate policy subservient to US demands, Dalton resigned as Chancellor.
Although it was hoped that Dalton’s resignation might offset some of the decline in public confidence in Labour’s economic policy, the government were never again endorsed by mass popularity as in the previous two years. The new Chancellor Sir Stafford Cripps expected of the country an austere realism which entailed the retention of rationing. His frugality extended to his welfare policies, which involved the further tightening of benefit payments. Both of these policies were unpopular amongst the mass electorate, and rationing caused consternation most notably the middle class, to whom the need for wartime prudence was no longer apparent.
It is at this point that the switch from socialist idealism to pragmatic consolidation might be identified as a cause of voter disaffection. In spite of some successes during 1948, including good export figures, participation in the Berlin Airlift and – regardless of middle class perceptions – generous relaxations in rationing, the public’s faith in the Attlee government to manage the rebuilding of Britain had dropped off considerably.
The Conservative Party made some political headway by attacking the government’s credentials with regard to the 1948 devaluation of the pound, which was designed to bring about the much needed rise in exports. Although it did help to achieve this end, Churchill’s party was able to lament publicly the humiliation the government had brought upon the British currency, and at the same time place blame on the government for the continuing food scarcities and long queues.
So, at the 1950 election there was a 2.9% swing against Labour. Although this was not much in terms of the popular vote, Labour lost 78 seats and the Conservatives gained 101; Labour were left with a majority of just five seats.
This large Parliamentary shift, in the face of an unremarkable swing in the popular vote, can be attributed partly to Labour’s loss of the middle class vote. While Labour managed to retain much working class support – largely because of the role class identification was playing in determining partisan support at this time – the middle class had quickly become disaffected. Their living standards had not radically altered since 1945, and the significance of many of these voters is that they voted in marginal constituencies. Just by losing a core of middle class voters, Labour lost a great many marginal contests and most particularly in the well-to-do constituencies of southern and south-eastern England.
Following Cripps’ resignation on grounds of ill health, Hugh Gaitskell took over as Chancellor during Attlee’s second government. Gaitskell adopted a similarly pragmatic approach to Britain’s budgetary problems and kept typically socialist long-term economic planning to a minimum. Although there was some tangible degree of divisions within the party over the banality and unradical approach, with many backbenchers urging a return to the early zealousness for national change, it was not this issue which harmed the party most.
In the summer of 1950, the Korean War broke out. America sought the support of her allies in fighting the North Korean communists, and Britain committed troops to assist her. To the most left-wing Labour MPs and enthusiasts, this was a betrayal of socialist solidarity; on the other hand, to many more involved with the party this represented subservience to US demands.
Within the Cabinet, Gaitskell’s decision to expand the defence budget at the expense of domestic spending enraged health minister Nye Bevan in particular, who resigned as a response to the Korean deployment. Gaitskell had imposed upon the health service prescription charges for glasses and false teeth, which to Bevan and other NHS idealists represented the betrayal of NHS founding principals.
This split was a key moment in the demise of Attlee’s government. It had several effects, all of which were harmful in both the long and short term. Firstly, the Parliamentary party was split in its loyalties to the party leadership, and cohesion within the legislature was less assured. Secondly, the split right at the very top of the party meant that organisational preparations for upcoming elections were hampered, and the electoral machine was disarmed. Thirdly, it brought about a further drop in voter confidence as external signs of infighting brought into question the competence and clarity of direction Labour could offer.
As Labour struggled to legislate effectively, and following another badly-handled balance of payments crisis in the summer of 1951, Attlee dissolved Parliament in September and Labour subsequently lost – albeit narrowly – the October election.
Once more, it was the objection of the middle class voters to austere conditions which brought about the Parliamentary swing. Working class voters, on the other hand, remained loyal to the Labour Party and the 1951 election saw Labour poll the highest aggregate popular vote ever achieved in Britain.
Looking at the Labour government in these four sections – of reform, of crisis, of consolidation and of division – helps us to see where the party lost its huge majority. Firstly, the party enacted most of its initial 1945 manifesto pledges in establishing the NHS, founding the Welfare State, and building one million new homes. With an inadequate sense of self-renewal, the Attlee era party had little further to put before voters after 1947. This is especially so when one considers the crises they faced in that year, making the 1945 blue-skies, ‘New Jerusalem’ thinking incredibly difficult to sustain. Rather, the balance of payments problem forced the non-idealists within the leadership to face the necessary curtailing of public spending. This brought about a little unrest within working class support but it was the effect on middle class attitudes and the cracks opening among the Parliamentary party’s support which began to harm electoral credibility. Then, as the Cripps years failed to bring an end to food scarcities and food queues, Labour’s perceived impact upon the national way of life was minimal to voters in the most crucial swinging constituencies. Furthermore, an apparently humiliating trade policy including subservience to US demands was particularly discrediting in the eyes of post-colonialists who identified this as betrayal rather than pragmatism. Finally, splits over the Korean War – both over the political justifications for British deployment, and over the cuts in public spending domestically – brought about splits in the party which made it poorly placed to fight the 1951 election.
