From Social Welfare to Cultural Values: The Puzzle of Postwar Change in Britain and the United States

Abstract

On Thursday, 5 July 1945, the British electorate appeared to draw a line under the prewar political world. This electorate turned the wartime government, led by the Conservative party, out of office. Moreover, it dismissed the Conservatives in favor of a party that still harbored doubts about its proper governing role, namely, British Labour. The scale of this reversal was additionally unprecedented. Labour had only ever formed minority, shortlived governments before; its last such venture, in 1929, had seen the party take power just in time to acquire responsibility for the Great Depression. The Tories had thus returned to effective leadership in 1931, such that Tory electoral and governmental dominance was still the context for the 1945 election. Now, however, Labour had returned with not just an absolute but an enormous majority in Parliament: it gained more seats than the Tories were left holding. And this over a party that had arguably weathered the Great Depression and saved the nation in a world war.