Attlee Government Research Articles

Going Up in Smoke: Tobacco and Government Policy in the Age of Austerity, 1945-50.

This article examines the Attlee government's performance as a crisis manager in relation to tobacco policy in the years prior to the publication in 1950 of research linking smoking and cancer. Health concerns played no role in tobacco policy before 1950, and the government hoped more teenagers would take up smoking and pay tobacco duty. Tobacco took on added significance as an economic issue because policy-makers had so little room for manoeuvre. Their task was to balance the desire of consumers to smoke as much as they liked at a reasonable price, the exchequer's need to raise revenue from tobacco duties, and the imperative to conserve scarce dollars. Tobacco was an economic and financial rather than a health issue in the late 1940s and the authorities juggled competing demands creditably. This article examines previously neglected but important aspects of the histories of tobacco and of the Attlee government's economic policies.

The task ahead for Labour if it came to power

The task ahead for Labour if it came to power

The Infant Hercules and the Socialist Missionary: Ellen Wilkinson in Middlesbrough East, 1924–1931

Best known for her role in the Jarrow Crusade or as minister of education in the post-war Attlee government, Ellen Wilkinson’s pre-Jarrow parliamentary career has often been subject to only cursory...

War, Empire and the Attlee government 1945–1951

In this article, adapted from a speech delivered at a conference on reparative history, the author challenges the dominant view of the progressive radicalism of the postwar Attlee government by exposing the brutality of its imperial adventures. Examining British involvement in Vietnam, Indonesia, Greece, Malaya, Kenya, India, Palestine, Iran and Korea, the piece paints a very different and bloody historical narrative from the dominant one. It argues that the welfare state was accompanied by the creation of the warfare state and that it was the Labour Party which cemented the ‘special relationship’ with the United States, which today the vast majority of the parliamentary Labour Party would still like to see hold sway in terms of foreign policy and questionable foreign interventions.

Justifying British Advertising in War and Austerity, 1939-51.

Drawing together institutional papers, the trade- and national-press, and Mass-Observation documents, this article examines the changing ways that the Advertising Association justified commercial advertising from 1939 to 1951. It argues that the ability to repeatedly re-conceptualize the social and economic purposes of advertising was central to the industry's survival and revival during the years of war and austerity. This matters because the survival and revival of commercial advertising helps to explain the composition of the post-war mixed economy and the emergence of a consumer culture that became the 'golden age' of capitalism. While commercial advertising's role in supporting periods of affluence is well documented, much less is known about its relationship with war and austerity. This omission is problematic. Advertising was only able to shape the 1950s and 1960s economy because its corporate structures remained intact during the 1940s, as the industry withstood the challenges of wartime and the difficulties presented under Attlee's government. Recognizing the deliberate attempts of advertising people to promote a role for commercial advertising invites us to reconsider the inevitability of post-war affluence, while offering fresh insight into the debate around consumer education, freedom of choice, and the centrality of advertising and communication in democratic society: issues central to the society Britain was, and hoped to become.

Reluctant partners: African Americans and the origins of the special relationship

This article assesses the overwhelmingly negative reaction of African Americans to the speech delivered by Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri, in March 1947. It shows that black intellectuals and activists fervently opposed the Anglo-American alliance championed by the former prime minister because they believed it a cynical attempt to buttress an exploitative overseas empire that Britain could no longer afford. African Americans considered Churchill a racist intent on preserving white global hegemony and suppressing the democratic aspirations of people of colour. Despite their initial optimism about the Attlee government elected to power in July 1945, they became almost as mistrustful of the Labour Party as they did the Conservatives. In demonstrating how African Americans considered the Anglo-American alliance to be a means of propagating white racism, the article provides a new perspective on grassroots resistance to the Special Relationship, emphasising tensions between diplomatic elites and ordinary citizens.

The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 Reconsidered

The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927, passed by Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative government after the General Strike, has been regarded as ‘more of an insult than an injury’. This article challenges such an interpretation, suggesting that the Act was draconian in conception and (to an extent) in execution. It represented a break with the industrial relations legal settlement which had been painstakingly arrived at by the 1920s. The pressures to unravel this settlement came much more from within the Conservative Party than as a result of the Strike, and saw Conservative moderates marginalized. For Labour and the trade unions, the Act demonstrated ‘deliberate class bias’ and they worked tirelessly for its repeal, eventually achieved by the Attlee government in 1946. The effects of the Act were more limited than expected but this was more the product of circumstances than intentions. The 1927 Act fits comfortably within an enduring pattern of Conservative distrust of the unions, the manifestations of which are visible today.

Великобритания, процессы деколонизации в Азии и План Коломбо (1945-1951 гг.)

After World War II, European metropolises were forced to go the way to decolonization. Processes of the collapses of European empires were caused by a surge of the national-liberation movement in the colonies during and after the war, an increase of the influence of the world's public opinion and the anti-colonial activities of the United Nations established in 1945. The Cabinet of Clement Attlee, which came to power in 1945, headed for a withdrawal from some territories of the British Empire. The article is devoted to a little-known episode in the Russian historiography connected with the establishment of the Organization of the Colombo Plan. The initiative to institute such a structure was initially sounded in India, and Britain supported and developed the Indian idea. The British governmental circles in the circumstances of decolonization processes in Asia after World War II sought to prevent the collapse of relations with the dominions and colonies that became independent. In 1947, the largest British colony in Asia, India, gained independence and two conflicting republics, India and Pakistan, appeared. In 1948, Burma and Ceylon became sovereign states. In 1947, the Attlee Cabinet handed the Palestinian question to the UN. In February 1950, a conference of foreign affairs ministers of the Commonwealth countries was held in Colombo, Ceylon. India made an initiative for such a meeting a year earlier, London willingly supported this initiative on its grounds. The Attlee Government hoped to strengthen relations with the recent colonies and dominions in the Commonwealth format by increasing spending on Asian territories under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act 1945. London also made a lot of diplomatic efforts to convince the United States in the necessity of their participation in the Colombo Plan. The White House expressed interest in the Plan after the start of the Korean War on 25 June 1950. US officially joined the Colombo Plan of the organization in 1951. The essence of the Colombo Plan included two related elements. The first was a course for the implementation of programs of technical and educational cooperation of the member states. The second element of the plan was a broad program of economic development, including the financing of infrastructure projects (roads, railways, irrigation and other activities). In 1951, Conservatives came to power and continued the Labor policy of strengthening ties with the Commonwealth through the Colombo Plan. However, on the one hand, the financial problems of the United Kingdom did not allow to significantly expand the amount of aid to Asian countries, on the other hand, the attention of the British Conservatives in the 1950s was switched to the unfolding decolonization processes in Africa, which became a field of rivalry, along with the Asian region, of two superpowers in the Cold War.

The Attlee government and welfare state reforms in post-war Italian Socialism (1945–51): Between universalism and class policies

The purpose of this article is to analyse how the Italian socialist movement viewed the social reforms of the Attlee Labour government introduced just after the Second World War. The intention is to study the extent and limits of the labour influence on Italian socialism. The Labour Party made the re-founding of a new interclass social pact, a universal matter intending to meet the needs of both the working and middle classes. The Italian socialist movement monitored the Labour government’s changes with interest, assessing them from two different perspectives. The reformist wing had a better grasp of the political–ideological implications of Labour’s approach to the welfare state. Vice versa, the majority of the Italian socialists pursued a class socialism and a strong alliance with the Communist Party, rejecting the Labour social policy model. After the split of 1947, however, the two views of Italian socialism failed to develop and implement a political programme for a welfare state based on the British universalistic tendency model. The political weaknesses of Italian socialist organizations in the field of social policy contributed to the characterization of the Italian welfare state in the post-war period and fundamentally delayed its universalistic implementation, at least until the 1960s.

Michael Young, the Institute of Community Studies, and the Politics of Kinship.

This article examines the East London-based Institute of Community Studies, and its founder, Michael Young, to show that sociology and social research offered avenues for left-wing political expression in the 1950s. Young, who had previously been Head of the Labour Party Research Department during the Attlee government, drew upon existing currents of psychological and sociological research to emphasize the continuing relevance of the extended family in industrial society and to offer a model of socialist citizenship, solidarity and mutual support not tied to productive work. Young and his colleagues at the Institute of Community Studies promoted the supportive kinship networks of the urban working class, and an idealized conception of the relationships between women, to suggest that family had been overlooked by the left and should be reclaimed as a progressive force. The article shows that the Institute's sociological work was informed by a pre-existing concern with family as a model for cooperative socialism, and suggests that sociology and social research should be seen as important sources of political commentary for scholars of post-war politics.

To Issue ‘Stand Down’ or Not…: Britain and Kashmir, 1947–49

‘It turned out to be a war unlike all others in that the respective Commanders communicated daily by telephones between Rawalpindi and New Delhi’. Thus it was that Henry Devereux – a British officer with the Pakistan Artillery – remembered the India-Pakistan conflict on Kashmir, 1947–49. It was a unique conflict with British generals commanding armies, on both sides, engaged in open warfare with each other and British diplomats taking up cudgels on behalf of the hostile governments they were accredited to. Therefore, whether to issue an order of “stand down” to the British military personnel involved in Kashmir emerged as an important question which the Clement Attlee Government (1945–51) faced as it struggled to formulate its response to the conflict. The article focuses on this question of the involvement of British officers in the armies of two warring dominions of the British Commonwealth and analyses the response of Great Britain, which sought to resolve the dilemma by keeping in mind the wider, international ramifications of its response – a fascinating though neglected aspect of the immediate aftermath of British decolonization in South Asia.

Churchill, SACLANT and the Politics of Opposition

Agreement of Supreme Allied Command Atlantic (SACLANT) was an emotive public issue in Britain and became wrapped up in Party politics in a General Election year. In Opposition Winston Churchill used the SACLANT issue to attack the Attlee government, which had accepted the Atlantic Command. Once returned to power Churchill pursued SACLANT to a summit meeting with President Truman and afterwards claimed to have extracted significant concessions. Labour Party MPs dismissed these claims as mere face saving devices.

Anglo-American Relations and the Labour Government's ‘Scuttle’ from Abadan: a ‘Declaration of Dependence’?

The 1956 Suez Crisis has attracted enormous attention and been widely seen as marking a sea change in Britain's position in the Middle East and within the Anglo-American special relationship. Yet in September 1951 the Attlee government had already signalled waning British power in pulling back from major unilateral military action to defend Britain's single most important overseas asset: the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and its huge operations in Iran. What this crisis revealed of British aspirations in the Middle East and within the special relationship has not received the attention it deserves. This article examines the Attlee government's decision to ‘scuttle’ from Abadan in September 1951. It first places the decision in the context of Anglo-American relations and great cumulative pressure in favour of British military action. It then weighs various considerations claimed in the extant literature to explain the British decision. In doing so it disagrees with suggestions that British military intervention was precluded by an understanding between Truman and Attlee that such action was acceptable only in a narrow range of circumstances for fear of retaliatory Soviet intervention in Iran. It also argues that accounts that correctly emphasise US opposition to the use of force as the key restraint on the Attlee government could and should have gone further. Specifically, it needs to be better appreciated just how the Truman administration actively undermined potential British recourse to military intervention, infused other potential constraints with extra weight and helped delay a Cabinet decision until a point when armed intervention was least likely to achieve British ends.

Negotiating a unified Atlantic naval command: Anglo-American summit talks and the impact of domestic politics

From Trafalgar in 1805 to the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the Royal Navy was in its prime. It symbolised Britain's early industrialisation, safeguarded British trade, protected strategically vital sea lanes around the British Isles and the empire, and projected British power to far-flung corners of the world. Despite British acceptance of naval parity with the United States under the terms of the Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty signed in Washington in 1922 (and the gradual establishment of the US Navy as the world's most powerful and important naval force), within Britain the Royal Navy remained highly respected and was popularly seen as a yardstick of British greatness. When plans for a unified Supreme Allied Atlantic Naval Command (SACLANT) under an American admiral were leaked in February 1951, furious British popular and political protest ensued. The plans appeared to be a slight upon the Royal Navy, an affront to Britain's status and maritime history, and a damaging reflection of the state of the Anglo-American relationship. The Attlee government was pilloried for accepting SACLANT in principle and, once restored to power in October 1951, Churchill pledged to seek alternative arrangements with President Truman. This article casts new light upon the consequent negotiations about the Atlantic Command at an Anglo-American summit meeting in January 1952. Specifically, it argues that understanding the conduct of these talks and ultimate British acquiescence requires careful consideration of domestic political considerations in Britain and the United States – an explanatory factor hitherto missed in the (surprisingly few) existing analyses of the SACLANT issue.

Labour and the 1949 Parliament Act

This article examines the reasons why the Attlee government passed the 1949 Parliament Act to reduce the House of Lords' power to delay legislation from two years to one year. It is argued that this was a departure from pre-war Labour policy and ideology on the upper house, which was located firmly within the progressive tradition, and that therefore this change needs explaining. The article argues that under Attlee the government's approach to the Lords became more conciliatory as a result of the experience of working with the upper house. Both the constitutional and the political nature of this experience are examined here. This article also seeks to explain why the government entered into negotiations with the Conservatives about the future of the Lords and why these talks were more or less doomed to failure.

Rawls, Adam Smith, and an Argument From Complexity To Property-Owning Democracy

Rawls, Adam Smith, and an Argument <i>From</i> Complexity <i>To</i> Property-Owning Democracy

Public schools and the Fleming report of 1944: shunting the first-class carriage on to an immense siding?

This paper assesses the origins, conclusions and consequences of the Fleming Committee, which considered the relationship between Britain’s leading independent boarding schools and the state. In 1944, the committee recommended one-quarter of the places at these schools should be assigned to a national bursary scheme for children who might benefit from boarding. The author emphasises the role that Ellen Wilkinson played in implementing a Fleming-style scheme in the early years of the Attlee Government. Despite promises to the contrary, the Conservative Government that was elected in 1951 did not expand the scheme, which lingered on in a desultory form. Failure stemmed from a lack of political will, which was reinforced by a shortage of public finance, inconsistent support from independent boarding schools and local education authorities and problems over the selection of pupils.

Rawls, Adam Smith, and an Argument &lt;i&gt;From&lt;/i&gt; Complexity &lt;i&gt;To&lt;/i&gt; Property-Owning Democracy

Rawls, Adam Smith, and an Argument From Complexity To Property-Owning Democracy Alan Thomas (bio) This paper foregrounds one argument in Rawls's work that is crucial to his case for one, determinate, form of political economy: a property-owning democracy.1 Section one traces the evolution of this idea from the seminal work of Cambridge economist James Meade; section two demonstrates how a commitment to a property-owning democracy flows from Rawls's own principles; section three focuses on Rawls's striking critique of orthodox welfare state capitalism. This all sets the stage for an argument, presented in section four, from the complexity of economic interactions to the strategy of making markets fair in the only feasible way that they can be made fair, namely, by "patterning" their effects. Section five concludes by asking whether any scheme of this general type is a realistic form of utopianism for a society such as ours. I. Rawls and Meade Many early readers of A Theory of Justice took Rawls to be advocating a form of "Keynesian capitalist liberalism."2 However, if we define a capitalist society as one where people who do not own capital work for wages paid to them by capitalists (those who exclusively hold property and other forms of capital), then Rawls's conception of a property-owning democracy would involve the rejection of capitalism. James Meade, the proximate influence on Rawls's ideas, was indeed a Keynesian. However, given the working definition of a capitalist [End Page 4] society that I have noted, it seems that liberal Keynesianism can reasonably be characterized as anti-capitalist in both Meade's and Rawls's variants. Meade's conception of a property-owning democracy emerged when he sought new avenues for egalitarianism in Britain given that the achievements of the Attlee government of 1945 were receding into the past.3 His aim was to combine Keynesian demand management with the public ownership of natural monopolies and the institutions of a property-owning democracy. Meade further proposed educational reform, a publicly funded unit trust, and state investment funds to supply an unconditional basic income. In a break with the policies of the then Labour government, Meade believed that welfare state redistribution was a threat to overall economic efficiency. Furthermore, relying on trade unions to redress the balance between labour and capital generated constant inflationary pressure in a way that explained the perceived "failure" of post-war Keynesian demand management: [G]radually, as in our imperfectly competitive society separate groups learned to press their monopolistic bargaining powers to obtain each for itself the best possible share of the available income, the system broke down.4 Meade's new strategy for redressing the balance between labour and capital was to rely on market prices to protect individual liberties and economic efficiency, but to increase the bargaining strength of labour by giving workers capital: If private property were much more equally divided we should achieve the mixed citizen—both worker and property owner at the same time—to live in the 'mixed economy' of public and private enterprise. The ownership of private property could then fulfill its useful function of providing a basis for private enterprise and for individual security and independence without carrying with it the curse of social inequality as it now does.5 Rawls's adaptation of Meade's ideas contains a cleaner break with welfare state capitalism, particularly in his late, summative statement of his views in Justice as Fairness where welfare state capitalism is unequivocally described as unjust.6 In the first edition of A Theory of Justice Rawls stated that: [End Page 5] The aim of the branches of government is to establish a democratic regime in which land and capital are widely though not presumably equally held. Society is not so divided that one small sector controls the preponderance of productive resources.7 The branches of government dealing with the economy are the Allocative branch that deals with externalities, competition, and anti-trust. The Stabilisation branch is the most Keynesian branch of government, concerned with demand management and full employment. The Transfer Branch ensures the payment of a decent social minimum compatible with economic efficiency overall, via...

The new Liberal Party from dawn to downfall 1906 - 1924

From 1906 to 1914 The Liberal Party and Liberal government, particularly from 1906, is a very important period of British history, often compared with the Labour government after 1945, another great phase of reform. But there is of course one big difference: the Liberal government of 1906 was pre-war, the Attlee government post-war. The Labour government in 1945 set the tone for post-war British development, politically and socially, down, perhaps, to the regime of Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s. ...

‘A Serious Menace to Security’: British Intelligence, V. K. Krishna Menon and the Indian High Commission in London, 1947–52

Recently released Security Service (MI5) documents offer new insights into the Indian government's vulnerability to communist subversion after 1947, and the extent to which this threatened British national security. Existing historical works have noted MI5's concern over the links between Indian nationalists and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) during the inter-war period. Absent from the current historiography, however, is an account of the British government's response to V. K. Krishna Menon's appointment as India's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in 1947. This article examines the nature of Menon's relationship with the CPGB, the risk that communists working for him within India's High Commission posed to British security, and the strategy that MI5 developed to meet it. Taken as a whole, as this article illustrates, the Attlee government's conviction that India, and more particularly, Krishna Menon, represented a weak link in the Commonwealth security chain, opens up new perspectives on Anglo-Indian relations post-1947.