Key information

3 The rise of consensus politics and political challenge, 1945-79

- Labour achieved a considerable amount in its first five ars of government and its social reforms were popular with much of the country

- main reforms were:

- the establishment of the National Health Service

- the National Insurance Act

- the National Assistance Act

- the Housing Act 1949 wich extended local authority's powers to build public sector housing for all income groups

- the implementation of the Education Act 1944

- after its landslide win in the 1945 election, the Labour government went on to win another in 1950 which saw its majority slashed to just 5 seats despite polling >1.5m more votes than conservatives

Reasons for the decline in Labour's vote

- some of Labour's lost seats in 1950 were due to the 1949 House of Commons (Redistribution of seats) Act which reduced the number of Labour safe seats by redrawing constituency boundaries

- others were lost due to the decline in popularity with the middle class alongside the size of the working class shrinking as only 72% viewed themselves as working class in 1951 compared to 78% in 1931

- the main causes of Labour were:

- rationing; wartime food and fuel rationing continued after the war with some items such as bread that were not restricted during wartime becoming rationed in peacetime

- austerity; the labour party seemed unable to revive GB's struggling economy in the immediate post-war years

- taxation; the standard rate of taxation in 1949 was nine shillings in every pound (45%) and the top rate of marginal tax for high earners was 90%

The 1951 General Election

- following the 1950 election, PM Clement Attlee found it increasingly difficult to control the Labour government; by 1951 he was exhausted by 5 years of government and many of his most able ministers fell ill or had died

- when Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin died in 1951 the party lost one of its most able and talented ministers and in October 1950 Sir Stafford Cripps resigned due to ill health; this deprived Attlee of 2 of his most experienced ministers in just over 6 months of each other

- in 1951 the party was conflicted due to budget cuts

- in 1950 GB became involved in the Korean War to protect South Korea as a part of the new United Nations force; the war resulted in a huge increase in military spending and the new chancellor Hugh Gaitskell announced an 'austerity budget' in 1951

- the new budget introduced prescription charges for glasses and dentistry and resulted in the resignation of Aneurin Bevin, the minister for labour and pioneer of the NHS

- Attlee had previously been skilled at defusing feuds within the party by but in 1951 he lacked authority and called an election in October which was lost to the conservative party

- although Labour gained, more votes it won fewer seats because of the new constituency structure and the first-past-the-post system

- Labour voters tended to be concentrated in fewer, mainly urban, constituencies

- the conservative won by 26 constituencies and so formed the next government whilst promising to maintain the main features of the welfare state and return the country to prosperity, whilst remaining united unlike Labour

Conservative dominance, 1951-64

- for the next 13 years, the conservative party would dominate GB politics and win 2 general elections in 1955 and 1959

- the main thrust of the policies were not much different to those of Labour; The Economist used the term 'Butskillism' which was a mixture of the chancellors' names from 1951 and 1955 (Gaitskell and R.A.Butler) to describe the economic welfare policies associated with the post-war consensus

- winston Churchill returned to Downing Street for 4 years just as the wartime rations and restrictions came to an end; he was 76 at this time and many of his colleagues observed he had lost his dynamism and drive but acted as a 'caretaker'

Eden's government, 1955-7

- even though Churchill suffered a stroke in 1953 he still managed to remain in office until retiring in 1955

- churchill was replaced by Antony Eden who was a relatively young and popular politician with an impressive wartime record as churchill's foreign minister

- in 1955 Eden called a general election in May 195 to ensure he had a strong mandate and was proven right

- by July 1955 GB had the lowest unemployment figures in recent history with only 215,000 people out of work (just over 1% of the workforce)

- within a year however, Eden become embroiled in a foreign policy disaster; the Suez crisis

suez crisis ->

- GB had maintained a presence in Egypt since the 19thC to protect the Suez canal which was owned by GB and France and used as its route to India

- after Indian independence in 1947 the canal was used as a means of shipping oil to GB, Europe and USA

- the nationalist president of Egypt, Gamal Abdul Nasser, stated that the canal should be in Egyptian hands and that he would be willing to pay GB shareholders a fair price for it

- Eden reacted with suspicion and hostility and when Nasser occupied the Canal Zone on July 26th 1956. his close relationship with the USSR convinced the GB that the canal would soon fall into Soviet hands

- when France and Israel invited GB to take part in an invasion of the Suez Canal Zone, Eden agreed in secret to participate; his motivation was to not be humiliated by Nasser and he knew his standing in the conservative party depended on presenting a strong image as an international statesman

- when the invasion began on November 5th 1956, US President Eisenhower, reacted angrily as a result of not being consulted on GB's intentions; he threatened to sell USA reserves of GB currency and collapse the value of the pound

- faced with the possibility of an economic crisis, Eden withdrew and resigned in January 1957

- the events at Suez showed a depletion of GB's world power and its dependence upon the USA

Macmillan's GB, 1957-63

- Eden was replaced by his chancellor of the exchequer, Harold Macmillan

- a mixed economy, rising living standards, low unemployment and declining social inequality made the Macmillan government very popular

- in 1957 GB wages and living standards were at their most equal in the 20thC between the rich and the poor

- in 1959 Genral Election the conservatives increased their majority

dissent on the right ->

- 1959 Chancellor Peter Thorneycroft, Treasury Minister Nigel Birch and Financial Secretary to the Treasury Enoch Powell all resigned; they felt Macmillian was spending too much and storing up economic problems

- they believed that inflation posed a bugger threat to the economy than unemployment did; they proposed spending cuts, tax rises nd an end to subsidies to nationalised industries alongside other measures to take out excess money

- the resignation of the 3 men was embarrassing but during a period of low unemployment and relatively low inflation, their exit made little impact on the wider public

night of the long knives ->

- by 1962 the popularity of the conservative party was declining; Macmillan's privileged background and the large number of upper class cabinet members (35 being former eton students) gave the impression that the pary was out of touch

- the labour party under Gaitskell and then Wilson, argued that priviledged aristocratic conservatives that had rose through conections, not their ability, were holding GB back

- the dramatic increase in consumer spending had resulted in a series of unforeseen economic problems and Macmillan needed to demonstrate that he was in control

- macmillan sacked 7 ministers from his cabinet and replaced them with younger men in an attempt to save his image as the conservatives were seen to be ageing ad privileged instead of young and meritocratic

- in the early 1960s tv and newspapers were dominated by youth culture and the likes of JFK as US president

- macmillan was breifly seen to be ruthless but it was widely approved showing that he was capable of taking action

scandal ->

- another area where the conservatives were starting to be mistrusted was the issue of national security

- at the height of the cold war, 3 high profile scandals rocked the government

- john vassal: between 1952-62he was a naval attache at the GB embassy in Moscow and was blackmailed by the KGB where he passed on large quantities of top-secret information on the GB Royal Navy and was caught when Soviet spies defected to the west and gave MI6 his name

- Harold 'Kim' Philby: in Jan 1963 he defected to the USSR despite being one of GB's most senior intelligence agents. he was the head of GB Counter Intelligence and had been under suspicion since the 1950s. As foriegn secretary in 1955 Macmillan had publicly announced that he had investigated and exonerated him and so was hugely embarrased when he defected. because of the Official Secrets Act it was not announced untill 1968 that Philby was such a high officer

- John Profumo: less than 6 months later in June 1963, the government's secretary of state for war admitted to having an affair with Christine Keeler. He had previously denied the affair to Macmillan who had believed him; it later transpired that she had also had a relationship with Yevgeny Ivanov who was a Russian attache and the media focussed on the spy angle despite it being a likley security risk

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

- ill health and the stress of mounting problems forced Macmillan to resign in October 1963

- Home was regarded by most of his party to be a skilled administrator ad an astute politician

- Home's image problems would damage the conservatives in the next election; he was a member of the house of lords and had the title of Earl before he renounced it to become PM

- satirists on tv and in magazines ridiculed Home for his aristocratic manners

Wilson's government, 1964-70

- he had been the leader of the labour party for a year when he won the 1964 election

- he presented the party as meritocratic and classless, comparing it to public perceptions of the conservative party

- during the election wilson effectively used the tv to present himself as the face of modern GB; despite this labour only won by a slight majority and thus could not make major policy changes without a new election to gain more seats

wilson's plans and problems ->

- wilson and his chancellor, James Callaghan, discovered in the first few days that GB's economic problems were far worse than they had previously thought; previous chancellor, Reginald Maudling, had delivered generous tax cuts and spending promises to the last budget and left the country in £800m deficit

- wilson had promised to improve pensions and build 1/2m new homes a year alongside maintain GB's military presence overseas which was 1/5 of GB's spending in the 1960s

- wilson did not wish to abandon his commitments to either social reform or GB's prestige and so to lessen the pressure on the economy, devalued the pound in 1967 against his wishes; this caused Callaghan to resign as chancellor

wilsons achievements ->

- in 1966 there was a second general election which enabled labour to get the majority it needed

- wilson's government made many reforms: new universities and polytechnics were built; the open university was established; laws on abortion, homosexuality and the death penalty were liberalised

- much of this undermined the economic problems

- the sense of optimism that dominated politics in 1964 had disappeared by 197 with the feeling that wilson had not fulfilled his promises

wilson and his cabinet ->

- declined in popularity towards the end of the 1960s as unemployment began to steadily grow and the number of days lost to strikes began to increase

- wilson became increasingly suspicious of government ministers fearing that they were after his position; Roy Jenkins, James Callaghan and Barbara Castle were all potential candidates

- the decline in the cabinet's morale had serious consequences

- in 1969 legislation to curb unofficial strike was proposed by Barbara Castle but due to wilson's paranoia he refused fearing that Callaghan would use it to create a confrontation; this led to a decade of rising strikes and union unrest

Heath's government, 1970-4

- Edward Heath attempted to bring about a radical political change from 1970 onwards; he sought to break the post war consensus regarding the size of the state and commitment to full employment

- prior to the 1970 election Heath and his shadow cabinet met at the Selsdon Park Hotel and planned a new manifesto and began introducing it after his election

- Heath referred to the change in direction as a 'quiet revolution'; he believed that by removing the state from people's lives they would become more enterprising

- a first budget from Chancellor Anthony Barber featured tax cuts and government spending cuts; Heath ended wilson's incomes policy believing that wages should be set by the market

- the Barber budget failed to cure GB's growing economic problems and fuelled inflation; heath was forced to take a U-turn within 18 months

- heaths biggest problem was his poor relationship with trade unions; by 1974 there had been 2 miners strikes

- Heath faced criticism from both his party and opposition; wilson accused Heath of trying to strip away union rights whilst his party saw Heath as a traitor for betraying his promises from Selsdon with some forming the 'Selsdon Group' dedicated to introducing free market policies and reducing state intervention

- following the 2nd miners strike over the winter of 1973-4, Heath declared a state of emergency and a 3 day week

- he called a general election in February 1974 as a referendum on union power but lost; reflects a lack of confidence in his abiloty to manage the union, inflation and economic decline

Labour government, 1974-9

- Harold Wilson was back as PM with a minority government

- wilson was older, in poorer health and had little of the modernising zeal that he once had

- the hung parliament meant that he needed to call a second election in 1974; he gained a slender majority of 3 seats

The third Wilson government, 1974-6 ->

- the 1st priority of the government was to end union unrest by repealing the Industrial Relations Act; instead it attempted to return to the corporatism of the 1960s by developing a policy called 'social contract'

- in return for the unions agreeing not to pursue excessive wage claims, the government would offer subsidies to the cost of living

- wilson attempted to present his government as conciliatory towards the unions

- in short he ended miners' strikes but the new policy did nothing to deal with the underlying cause of the strikes, inflation.

- wilson's party was divided into 3: the centre right, soft left and hard left

- the centre right: Wilson, Callaghan and Denis Healey. ideas were similar to the of the left of the conservatives. Healey embraced monetarism in 1975 and abandoned the post war commitment to full employment

- soft left: led by Micheal Foot. pro-union but lacked Tony Benn's radicalism

- hard left: led by Tony Benn. extreme left wing thinking. wanted a siege economy (control imports and reduce exports) in response the the 1976 IMF crisis

- wilson resigned in 1976 having become less interested in and concerned with running the government

Callaghan's government, 1976-9 ->

- following wilson's decision to resign he became PM

- he was from the centre right like wilson and his Chancellor Denis Healey was; they began to abandon key aspects of the post war economic consensus

- he was a pragmatists and did not follow policies based on ideology but on practicality; this clashed with Tony Benn, part of the cabinet

- he did not believe that GB could spend its way out of the crisis but must 'pay its way' in the world

- he believed GB had borrowed to live beyond its means for too long and that this caused the loss of confidence in GB and the pound

- Benn proposed leaving the EEC and believed that GB could effectively cut herself off from the global economy using a siege economy o protect state spending on welfare from international banks and currency traders

- Benn became an increasingly marginal figure as his arguments were seen to be unworkable and extreme

- despite divisions, Callaghan was able to remain popular with the electorate and was believed that he would defeat Margaret Thatcher at the next elections as she had low opinion poll ratings

- the winter of strikes caused Callaghan's own poll ratings to slump; in March 1979 69% were dissatisfied with the government's performance yet only 45% thought Thatcher was performing well as leader of the opposition

- in March 1979 Margaret Thatcher won the General Election for the conservatives

1a: A changing political landscape