careless of the poverty of the masses? It was this
deep distrust of the Conservative Party, regarded
by Labour supporters as the party of the well-to-
do, that induced a larger proportion of working
people and soldiers than ever before, together
with traditional Labour supporters, to put their
faith in a socialist government and in a prime min-
ister, Clement Attlee, who had previously been
overshadowed by Churchill. Ernest Bevin and
Herbert Morrison had had a far greater impact
during the pre-war and war years. Yet Attlee
proved a most effective and even wily leader; with
his pipe, his baggy trousers and his mousey mous-
tache, his mild-mannered image was in sharp con-
trast to the larger-than-life Churchill.
The transfer from military service to peacetime
employment was managed by the Labour gov-
ernment with considerable skill, an effective
example of good planning. But the women who
had manned the factory benches now frequently
had to give up their jobs to the men. This time
soldiers, unlike after the First World War, were
demobilised in an orderly and fair fashion and
only as fast as they could be reabsorbed in civil-
ian work. This meant Britain still had more than
900,000 men in the forces in 1948. The free
‘utility’ civilian clothes supplied to everyone on
leaving the army were just the first sign that the
future had been thought out. Retraining facilities
and vacancies in industry became available as
wartime production was switched to that of
peacetime. There was great demand for goods
and a need for new housing and public works.
A most important feature of the celebrated
Beveridge Report of 1942 agreed by all three par-
ties at the time, Conservative, Labour and Liberal,
was a commitment that the government’s running
of the nation’s economy would ensure full
employment. Never again should the hungry
1930s, with the hated means test, be allowed to
return. Labour and Conservative governments
were able to fulfil that pledge for a generation,
unemployment rarely rising above 2 per cent
or half a million. The other promises of the
Beveridge plan, more wholeheartedly supported
by Labour and the Liberals than by Conservatives,
were to provide insurance for the whole of the
population for the basic needs of life, and on death
a grant for their burial. The state would take care
of its citizens from the ‘cradle to the grave’. A
health service would provide medical treatment
for the whole family regardless of who was work-
ing and who was not. Together, these measures
laid the foundations of the post-war welfare state.
They represented a tremendous advance in work-
ing people’s standards of living, an indirect ‘social
wage’ provided by the Exchequer from the differ-
ential contributions and taxes of the whole popu-
lation. The Conservatives doubted from the start
whether the state could afford to make such far-
reaching promises entailing vast expenditure.
There were reforming Tories in the wartime coali-
tion too, but by 1945 they had passed only one
important measure through Parliament, R. A.
Butler’s Education Act of 1944, which when
implemented raised the school-leaving age to fif-
teen and reorganised the educational system so
that better opportunities would be opened to all.
The Labour government translated theoretical
welfarism into practical measures. The Insurance
Act of 1946 and – after a struggle between
Aneurin Bevan, the fiery Welsh minister of health,
and the doctors, which ended in a compromise
over the continuation of private medicine – the
National Health Service Act of the same year
were the two most important measures of the
new government, which carried out and extended
the Beveridge plan.
The commitment to socialism, however,
remained largely a matter of theory. In practice
the Attlee administration’s approach was prag-
matic, aiming at the gradual transformation of the
British economy. This reflected the electorate’s
mood accurately enough. The majority of the
people were interested, not in theories of socialism
but, rather, in gaining a better standard of living,
a fairer share of the nation’s production, more
equal opportunity – in short, ‘social justice’. The
continued rationing of food was one way of shar-
ing out what was essentially in short supply. Basic
foods were subsidised, so even the poorest people
could afford to buy their rations. The people had
never enjoyed better health. State ownership was
extended only where it seemed necessary. The
Bank of England was nationalised, but not the