Attlee’s Labour Governments,
1945-51 
by Dr Robert Pearce
University College of St Martin, Lancaster


The nature of the topic

Labour was in power for only six years after the Second World War, but its work was both remarkably extensive and vitally important. This topic can yield a wide range of exam questions, and hence your study should be correspondingly wide. You need to know about the key personalities of the two governments, about their electoral fortunes and their domestic, foreign and imperial policies. You will also have to estimate Labour’s overall impact, which can only be done by placing these years into a wider context, including the 1930s, the war and the 1950s.

The vital first steps

A good factual knowledge must be acquired before you can answer typical A-level questions. Concentrate at first on acquiring as much knowledge as time permits on the central issues - the elections, the ministers, the welfare reforms, nationalisation, the economic background and external policy. As well as taking notes, compile a chronological table, in order to see the inter-connections between issues. Be sure to read the right books: this means a) starting with a straightforward, wide-ranging textbook and then working your way to the more specialised material, and b) finding the authors whose style and approach you find congenial, that is, the right books for you.

Fundamental issues

Now you should focus on important areas of analysis. These must include the following:

a. How well did Labour handle the economy? Break down this huge question into smaller, more manageable ones. Put on one side of the equation the positive advantages Labour enjoyed (including pent-up post-war demand and US aid) and, on the other, negative factors (like the legacy of the war, the severe winter of early-1947 and the outbreak of the Korean war). Was the government out of its depth during the convertibility crisis of 1947? Should devaluation in 1949 be looked upon as a failure or a constructive policy? Do not forget overall economic progress, in terms of industrial production.

b. What was the impact of Labour’s welfare reforms? How did the new system differ from that previously in place and from the Beveridge proposals? Do not forget that ‘welfare’ involves not just medical care and social insurance but also housing and education.

c. What judgements will you form on the nationalisation programme? It is not enough just to know the dates of the acts of nationalisation and the sums paid in compensation to the previous owners. You also need details of how well or badly the public utilities performed - and about the (public corporation) form which nationalisation took. 

d. Draw up reasons why the elections of 1945, 1950 and 1951 were lost and won. Take great care to make the factors fit the results. It is all too easy to pile on the reasons why Labour won in 1945 and then, for 1951, to exaggerate the reasons why the Conservatives were victorious, forgetting that Labour got the most votes when they went out of office and that in no election did they receive half the votes cast.

e. How successful were Labour’s external policies? Can the withdrawal from India be considered successful, especially in view of the communal rioting? Was Bevin right to throw in his lot with the USA in the Cold War?

f. How able was Attlee as cabinet maker and chairman? Could anyone else have kept the 'big personalities' in his cabinet together for so long? Compare him with other premiers.

High-grade issues

Once we start asking questions, it’s hard to stop! Here are several more issues to grapple with.
a. How reliant had Britain become on the USA by 1951? 
b. Which areas of reform were neglected?
c. How should Labour’s overall achievement be characterised? Did the governments introduce ‘socialism’ or merely ‘welfare capitalism’? What other labels might be used?
d. Why did Aneurin Bevan resign in 1951? Can meaningful comparisons be made between Bevan/Gaitskell and Oswald Mosley/Philip Snowden in 1930-31?
e. Did Labour miss a golden opportunity in not supporting the Schuman Plan?
f. Would a Conservative government have been likely to follow very different policies in 1945-51?
g. Should Labour have targeted those most in need instead of making benefits universal? How do you react to Correlli Barnett's argument that welfare costs overstrained the economy and hastened relative economic decline?

Reading Suggestions

Textbooks in the main A-level series cover this topic. For those who want to delve deeper, two books are recommended: Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power 1945-51 (Clarendon Press, 1984) and Peter Hennessy, Never Again, 1945-51 (Cape, 1992). Both contain details of the articles, monographs, biographies and diaries available for further study.