UNIT The Labour Party in power 3 – austerity and defeat – L Britain 1948–51 A I What is this unit about? This is an attempt to show how and why the Labour Party imposed a policy of austerity on the country and what were the consequences. It will be necessaryR to look briefly at some aspects of defence and foreign policy which had considerable impact on developments within Britain. The reorganisation and reform of the EDEXCEL Conservatives was also a major development of these years which wasE to bear fruit in the two elections of 1950 and 1951, the latter bringing to an end six years of Labour rule. Finally an assessment of the Attlee Labour governmentT is offered Key questions BY • How and why did the Labour Party continue with a policyA of austerity? • What were the economic achievements of these years? • In what ways did the Conservatives reform themselves? • What happened and why in the general elections of 1950 and 1951? • What was the legacy of the Attlee government? M Timeline 1948 April European Recovery ProgrammeE – Marshall Aid begins July Berlin Blockade – confrontation with USSR 29 July Olympic Games open Lin London 1949 March Clothes rationing ends NATO set up May Gas Nationalised P December Parliament Bill reduces powers of House of Lords 1950 February General Election: Labour 315, ConservativesENDORSED 298, Liberals 9, Others 3 M April Strike in London Docks June Outbreak of Korean War July First BritishA troops reach Korea August UK defence estimates trebled September National Service extendedYET to two years OctoberSCripps resigns as Chancellor of Exchequer – succeeded by Hugh Gaitskell November China intervenes in the Korean War 1 NOT Consensus and Conflict: British Political History 1945–90 1951 January Bevan becomes Minister of Labour February Iron and steel industries nationalised March Bevin leaves the Foreign Office L April Gaitskell’s first Budget Bevan and Wilson resign from the Cabinet 25 October General Election A Definitions The impact of foreign and defence policyI on British politics KGB Although this study is not primarily concerned with foreign and defence This was the initials of policies it is impossible to understand the nature of British domestic the feared post-war politics without understanding somethingR of the foreign policy context. secret police of the USSR. Britain was still a ‘great power’ if a slightly moth-eaten one. British troops Before the war it had were garrisoned across the world; once again back inEDEXCEL Hong Kong and been known as the Singapore in the Far East and, untilE 1948, in India. The British Army had NKVD and between 1936 a vast base in Egypt, near the Suez Canal, with smaller garrisons in Aden and 1938 had arrested, and elsewhere in the MiddleT East, where Britain was still the dominant tortured and shot power. In addition to all the old imperial commitments there were new hundreds of thousands calls for military manpower in Europe, occupyingBY conquered Germany and of Soviet citizens. battling communists in Greece. In the spring of 1948 there were still In 1938 Lavrentiy Beria, 940,000 troops in the BritishA Army and conscription was still in force to had taken over the provide these numbers. It was only by 1950 that it fell to around 750,000. management and he was To put these figures into context, the size of the current British Army is still the dreaded chief around 100,000 strong. after the war. M Berlin Airlift 1948 The Cold War However it was not only old imperial obligations which kept defence On 24 June 1948, the spending high.E No sooner had Nazi Germany been removed as a threat, Soviet Union closed all than a new totalitarian power seemed to be bidding for European, if not land routes to Berlin in world, domination. Soviet Russia with her vast Red Army occupying all of breach of post-war Eastern EuropeL as well as part of Germany now seemed to threaten agreements. The Western Western democracy. Stalin’s brutal dictatorship extended its methods of powers were faced with barbaric terror to Poland, Hungary and the other countries of Eastern either using force against Europe.P Communist puppet governments were installed even in the vastly superior Red Czechoslovakia which had a tradition of democracy. The Gestapo had been Army or accepting defeat removed to make way for the KGB. and the abandonment of ENDORSED their occupation of Berlin. MIn 1948, the year Czechoslovakia had been forcibly taken over, Stalin tried They hit on the idea of to force the British and Americans out of Berlin by denying land access using their superior air across Soviet-occupied territory. The result was the Berlin Airlift and power to fly food and the very real threat of a new world war. Attlee and his foreign secretary, supplies in to the two A Ernie Bevin, responded to Soviet aggression with a toughness worthy of million West Berliners. Churchill. Both realised that Britain and Western Europe needed the USA 272,000 sorties were as protectorYET and helper, and Bevin played a large and important part in flown and in May 1949S re-engaging the USA with Europe. He was instrumental in securing both Russia lifted the Marshall Aid and the setting up of NATO in 1949. This was to lead to blockade. criticism from left-wing Labour MPs, who were suspicious of the USA as 2 NOT The Labour Party in power, Britain 1948–51 1111 the world champion of capitalism and still had a sneaking admiration for 2 the Soviet Union. Some such MPs were Communist Fellow Travellers and Definition 3 even Soviet agents. Bevin hated them with a passion, which was returned 4 in equal measure. L Marshall Aid 5 Bevin’s position is well expressed by the contemporary cartoonist David This was the programme 6 Low and more recently by the journalist-turned-historian Andrew Marr. of economic aid to 7 A Europe proposed by 8 George Marshall, the 9 Source A I US Foreign Secretary in 1011 1947. The suggestion 1 was enthusiastically 2 R encouraged and helped 3111 by Bevin. Congress 4 EDEXCELagreed in 1948 and set 5 E up the European 6 Recovery Programme. 7 Eventually $13billion 8 T was spent. Britain and 9 France were the two 20111 BY chief beneficiaries. 1 A The aim was to reduce 2 the influence and 3 attraction of communism, 4 very strong in France, 5 M and to enable Western 6 Europe to buy US 7 products. It was 8 enlightened self interest 9 3.1 Cartoon entitled ‘What a headache sometimesE to be with America’ by David by the USA but it was 30111 Low, published in the Daily Herald, 12 January 1951 generous and did much 1 to help Europe develop 2 L as a prosperous , free 3 and essentially capitalist 4 Source B corner of the globe. 5 The key to Bevin, from NATO to directingP the British fight against insurgents in 6 Greece, was that he believed in liberty as essential to the building of a fair 7 society. He believed in a welfare system to keep the wolf from the door and full 8 employment for unionised workers, which could be deliveredENDORSED by taking some of 9 L S I E the economy into public ownership.M Because of his huge wartime powers he was SKI L BU LD R 40111 a great believer in the State. He once told some American correspondents that he 1 To what extent do believed it was possible to have public ownership and liberty. ‘I don’t believe the 2 Sources A and B two things are inconsistent . If I believed the development of socialism meant 3 A agree about Ernest the absolute crushing of liberty, then I should plump for liberty because the 4 Bevin? advance of human development depends entirely on the right to think, to speak, 5 and to use reason, and to allow what I callYET the upsurge to come from the bottom 6 S to reach the top’. 7 8222 Extract from A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr, published in 2007 3 NOT Consensus and Conflict: British Political History 1945–90 A common enemy Bevin and Attlee’s determination that Britain should both remain a great power and cooperate closely with the USA to contain communism had enormous implications for domestic politics. It createdL a real bond with the Conservative opposition and was a key element in consensus. In sharp contrast to the 1930s when foreign policy and rearmament had created bitter party political divisions, Tories and LabourA essentially agreed on Britain’s role in the world. Bevin persuaded Attlee and the small cabinet committee considering the matter that BritainI should become a nuclear power. In Bevin’s words, he wanted an atom bomb ‘with a bloody union jack on the top of it.’ When North Korea attacked South Korea in June 1950 using heavy military equipment suppliedR by the Soviet Union, Attlee and the Labour government aligned themselves completely with the USA and sent a British brigade to fight alongside US troops. TheEDEXCEL Korean War and the need to confront Soviet threats inE Europe through NATO forced a programme of re-armament upon the Labour Government that added to the financial strain. Peter Hennessy in his study of Britain in the 1950s, emphasises the cost. T A young Dennis Healey working as InternationalBY Secretary for the Labour Party (in effect a party researcher who briefed Bevin from time to time) comments in his memoirsA on the political costs for Bevin. Source C M Source D Despite imperial withdrawal from the Indian Bevin had enormous difficulty in winning the approval subcontinent, the handing over of military of the Labour Party itself while he was alive, and had responsibility for the defence of Greece and Turkey to to contend with at best grudging acquiescence from the USA, two punishing sterling crises in 1947 andE many of his cabinet colleagues.