alternatehistory.com
Harold Wilson (1950-1971)
Like no other figure in modern British history, Harold Wilson was The Prime Minister. There were children born on the day of his ascension who were mature adults by the day of his resignation. He presided over two decades of meteoric growth, and it no doubt helped ensure the extreme longevity of his premiership that in most years his government was able to point to increases in the standard of living for the ordinary British man and woman. As he dominated political life, so too did Britain's longest-serving Prime Minister become a stock figure in cultural life. Like few other men of his era, Wilson understood the importance of the media, and of perpetuating for oneself a media image, and the chipper Yorkshireman with his iconic pipe and amusing accent became a household figure across the nation. He frequently gave televised interviews and appeared on chat shows, where he cracked jokes and acted convivially, giving the impression of a leader in touch with his people.
However, as natural as Wilson's premiership seemed for the generation of Brits who grew up under him, its beginning came as rather a surprise. When Attlee died, a number of Labour grandees were thought likely leadership contenders, but most of their bids failed to materialise – either they were unable to get support among the parliamentary party or felt themselves too old to lead the party. In the end, the election came down to Aneurin Bevan, the Health Minister who had pushed for the creation of the NHS, Herbert Morrison, the Leader of the House of Commons, and Hugh Gaitskell, Cripps' replacement as Chancellor. The NHS, Bevan's brainchild, was proving one of the Attlee government's most popular achievements – but as for the man himself, his staunch leftism alienated much of the Parliamentary Party, and he quickly proved an unlikely candidate. Gaitskell and Morrison were both men of the right, but the latter was felt too old to be a viable leadership prospect, while the former was well-regarded but felt a little too untested.
When the first leadership ballot was held, the three candidates were almost equal in strength. A compromise needed to be reached, and with neither right-wing candidate willing to step aside in favour of the other, it came time to find a compromise candidate who could win the support of both left and right. That man was Harold Wilson, then President of the Board of Trade and one of few men whose ideological alignment was hard to pin down. Perhaps this was because he was even more untested than Gaitskell – in any case, he was nominated for the second round, and with both Morrison and Gaitskell stepping aside, the 34-year-old Wilson was elected leader by a large margin. Soon afterwards, he went on the Home Service to address the public and set out his goals in office. His high-pitched voice and soft Yorkshire accent was a change from the usual radio voices of the time, and perhaps brought him closer to the working man – either way, he was to have great success with the media as the years rolled on.
The 1950s, for Britain, was a time of unprecedented growth and economic welfare. Slowly but surely, the situation of the common man was improving. The average household suddenly found itself able to afford such luxuries as a television set and an automobile, both of which became cultural icons of the era and mainstays of life for the entire period since then. The NHS and the public education system meant that class divisions, once the predominant dividing line in British society, were fast disappearing, and the Labour Government made sure to drive this growth by pursuing investments in the public sector and the welfare state. Paid holiday time and improved workplace safety standards were passed, and motherhood allowance and child benefits were introduced to support British families. The housing subsidies introduced by Attlee's government were continued with equal vigour, and more council homes were completed with each passing year.
All of this came with a cost, however – Britain's commitments abroad were gradually reduced. India, once the jewel in the British Empire's crown, had been decolonised in 1947, and during the 50s, most of Africa would follow. Wilson himself was seen to lack strong opinions in foreign policy, but many of his Cabinet colleagues were strongly in favour of decolonisation, and Wilson largely welcomed these measures. The Conservatives, however, did not – as Opposition Leader Harold Macmillan, very much a man of the old Tory elite, bellowed at Wilson in a Parliamentary debate in 1959, “there is a wind of change blowing across this country and her overseas possessions. This decline in national consciousness is a political fact, but a preventable one – however, this government is not taking steps to prevent it”.
The big political conflict of the era, however, was not over the loss of Empire, but over the social security system. Labour had introduced a scheme to supplement the meagre existing state pensions with an added pension that would be paid out by the former employer as a statutory requirement. This did not resonate well with the Tories and Liberals, who ran mass campaigns against the “forced pension”, and proposed an alternative scheme whereby the individual employee and employer would be allowed to set pensions at levels suiting them. Labour in turn decried this as “unrealistic”, as it might potentially allow employers to cheat their employees out of any additional pensions whatever.
A group of High Tories, however, most of them representing rural seats, broke with their party leadership to endorse Labour's pension scheme. This caused something of a ruckus within the party, and the contentions between left and right came to a head – in the ensuing 1960 general election, the two sides in the pension conflict published separate manifestos. Although they would not run against one another until the following election, the seeds of the modern Centrist and National parties were born.
Wilson entered the 60s emboldened by his recent pension victory, and set about rebuilding the country from the ground up – literally. The introduction of the comprehensive secondary school, the most significant education reform since the tripartite system was introduced in 1944, moved significant planning responsibility onto local authorities, and the existing system of local government was felt too complex and uneven to handle such matters well. Legislation was brought before Parliament in 1962 to create a series of uniform council areas – initially a one-tier system was suggested, but this was changed to a two-tier one when the county councils vociferously protested – and the proposals were gradually implemented over the course of the following decade. England, Wales and Scotland moved from their previous intricate web of parish councils, town councils, boroughs, districts and so forth to a uniform system of regional councils and district councils, a system that despite its controversial nature has largely endured to the present day. Northern Ireland implemented its own one-tier local government system, foregoing the regional councils altogether, in 1970.
In 1965, Labour faced no unified opposition thanks to the Tory split, and were able to return to power with a comfortable majority. In the subsequent year's local elections, however, Labour were trounced – a fact attributed to Wilson's unusually poor television performance (being interviewed for the first time by journalists not sympathetic to his party might have helped) as well as the decline of the house-building programmes. Labour listened, however, and a bold new initiative was launched – until 1975, a million new homes were to be built each year. This, it was predicted, would solve the housing crisis once and for all, and a modern home was to be available for every British family that needed it. The “Million Programme”, as it has become known, was greeted with enthusiasm at the time, but many of the estates built under its auspices have since fallen into disrepair and disrepute, becoming havens of petty crime, magnets for social deprivation and, depressingly but hardly unexpectedly, centres for Britain's immigrant communities. Some see in the Million Programme the legacy of an era where it was felt that government intervention could save the country, some see it as primarily Labour's vanity project that ended up jeopardising the country's standard of living and laying waste to significant parts of the Green Belts.
Either way, the voters at the time would seem to have liked it, for in 1970 Labour was returned in a landslide of proportions unseen since 1945. Satisfied with his life's work, Wilson announced at the subsequent Party Conference that he was retiring from both the leadership and the premiership as soon as a successor could be found. This was not to take a very long time...
Like no other figure in modern British history, Harold Wilson was The Prime Minister. There were children born on the day of his ascension who were mature adults by the day of his resignation. He presided over two decades of meteoric growth, and it no doubt helped ensure the extreme longevity of his premiership that in most years his government was able to point to increases in the standard of living for the ordinary British man and woman. As he dominated political life, so too did Britain's longest-serving Prime Minister become a stock figure in cultural life. Like few other men of his era, Wilson understood the importance of the media, and of perpetuating for oneself a media image, and the chipper Yorkshireman with his iconic pipe and amusing accent became a household figure across the nation. He frequently gave televised interviews and appeared on chat shows, where he cracked jokes and acted convivially, giving the impression of a leader in touch with his people.
However, as natural as Wilson's premiership seemed for the generation of Brits who grew up under him, its beginning came as rather a surprise. When Attlee died, a number of Labour grandees were thought likely leadership contenders, but most of their bids failed to materialise – either they were unable to get support among the parliamentary party or felt themselves too old to lead the party. In the end, the election came down to Aneurin Bevan, the Health Minister who had pushed for the creation of the NHS, Herbert Morrison, the Leader of the House of Commons, and Hugh Gaitskell, Cripps' replacement as Chancellor. The NHS, Bevan's brainchild, was proving one of the Attlee government's most popular achievements – but as for the man himself, his staunch leftism alienated much of the Parliamentary Party, and he quickly proved an unlikely candidate. Gaitskell and Morrison were both men of the right, but the latter was felt too old to be a viable leadership prospect, while the former was well-regarded but felt a little too untested.
When the first leadership ballot was held, the three candidates were almost equal in strength. A compromise needed to be reached, and with neither right-wing candidate willing to step aside in favour of the other, it came time to find a compromise candidate who could win the support of both left and right. That man was Harold Wilson, then President of the Board of Trade and one of few men whose ideological alignment was hard to pin down. Perhaps this was because he was even more untested than Gaitskell – in any case, he was nominated for the second round, and with both Morrison and Gaitskell stepping aside, the 34-year-old Wilson was elected leader by a large margin. Soon afterwards, he went on the Home Service to address the public and set out his goals in office. His high-pitched voice and soft Yorkshire accent was a change from the usual radio voices of the time, and perhaps brought him closer to the working man – either way, he was to have great success with the media as the years rolled on.
The 1950s, for Britain, was a time of unprecedented growth and economic welfare. Slowly but surely, the situation of the common man was improving. The average household suddenly found itself able to afford such luxuries as a television set and an automobile, both of which became cultural icons of the era and mainstays of life for the entire period since then. The NHS and the public education system meant that class divisions, once the predominant dividing line in British society, were fast disappearing, and the Labour Government made sure to drive this growth by pursuing investments in the public sector and the welfare state. Paid holiday time and improved workplace safety standards were passed, and motherhood allowance and child benefits were introduced to support British families. The housing subsidies introduced by Attlee's government were continued with equal vigour, and more council homes were completed with each passing year.
All of this came with a cost, however – Britain's commitments abroad were gradually reduced. India, once the jewel in the British Empire's crown, had been decolonised in 1947, and during the 50s, most of Africa would follow. Wilson himself was seen to lack strong opinions in foreign policy, but many of his Cabinet colleagues were strongly in favour of decolonisation, and Wilson largely welcomed these measures. The Conservatives, however, did not – as Opposition Leader Harold Macmillan, very much a man of the old Tory elite, bellowed at Wilson in a Parliamentary debate in 1959, “there is a wind of change blowing across this country and her overseas possessions. This decline in national consciousness is a political fact, but a preventable one – however, this government is not taking steps to prevent it”.
The big political conflict of the era, however, was not over the loss of Empire, but over the social security system. Labour had introduced a scheme to supplement the meagre existing state pensions with an added pension that would be paid out by the former employer as a statutory requirement. This did not resonate well with the Tories and Liberals, who ran mass campaigns against the “forced pension”, and proposed an alternative scheme whereby the individual employee and employer would be allowed to set pensions at levels suiting them. Labour in turn decried this as “unrealistic”, as it might potentially allow employers to cheat their employees out of any additional pensions whatever.
A group of High Tories, however, most of them representing rural seats, broke with their party leadership to endorse Labour's pension scheme. This caused something of a ruckus within the party, and the contentions between left and right came to a head – in the ensuing 1960 general election, the two sides in the pension conflict published separate manifestos. Although they would not run against one another until the following election, the seeds of the modern Centrist and National parties were born.
Wilson entered the 60s emboldened by his recent pension victory, and set about rebuilding the country from the ground up – literally. The introduction of the comprehensive secondary school, the most significant education reform since the tripartite system was introduced in 1944, moved significant planning responsibility onto local authorities, and the existing system of local government was felt too complex and uneven to handle such matters well. Legislation was brought before Parliament in 1962 to create a series of uniform council areas – initially a one-tier system was suggested, but this was changed to a two-tier one when the county councils vociferously protested – and the proposals were gradually implemented over the course of the following decade. England, Wales and Scotland moved from their previous intricate web of parish councils, town councils, boroughs, districts and so forth to a uniform system of regional councils and district councils, a system that despite its controversial nature has largely endured to the present day. Northern Ireland implemented its own one-tier local government system, foregoing the regional councils altogether, in 1970.
In 1965, Labour faced no unified opposition thanks to the Tory split, and were able to return to power with a comfortable majority. In the subsequent year's local elections, however, Labour were trounced – a fact attributed to Wilson's unusually poor television performance (being interviewed for the first time by journalists not sympathetic to his party might have helped) as well as the decline of the house-building programmes. Labour listened, however, and a bold new initiative was launched – until 1975, a million new homes were to be built each year. This, it was predicted, would solve the housing crisis once and for all, and a modern home was to be available for every British family that needed it. The “Million Programme”, as it has become known, was greeted with enthusiasm at the time, but many of the estates built under its auspices have since fallen into disrepair and disrepute, becoming havens of petty crime, magnets for social deprivation and, depressingly but hardly unexpectedly, centres for Britain's immigrant communities. Some see in the Million Programme the legacy of an era where it was felt that government intervention could save the country, some see it as primarily Labour's vanity project that ended up jeopardising the country's standard of living and laying waste to significant parts of the Green Belts.
Either way, the voters at the time would seem to have liked it, for in 1970 Labour was returned in a landslide of proportions unseen since 1945. Satisfied with his life's work, Wilson announced at the subsequent Party Conference that he was retiring from both the leadership and the premiership as soon as a successor could be found. This was not to take a very long time...
- Utgard96
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