A Better Britain: POD 1944

[Chris Nation]

Victory at Home: The 1945 General Election

In September 1944, just as news arrived that the Allies had liberated Paris and were advancing through the South of France, a young colonel was sitting at a desk in Delhi serving as the assistant director of military intelligence in British India when a surprising note passed across his desk. The British government had authorised a secret delegation of leading Tories to travel to India with instructions to meet with the highest-ranking British officials within British India, and with representatives of the Indian independence movements, to ascertain what the postwar position of British India would be. Chief among these Tories was the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Thomas Lionel Dugdale. The young colonel would be tasked with briefing Mr. Dugdale on the military situation in British India when he arrived in Delhi in just five days’ time.

Mr. Dugdale arrived and greeted the young intelligence warmly, “My dear Colonel Powell, what have you to tell me?” The young intelligence officer treated the Chairman with the utmost respect. However, the conversation soon drifted away from the official business for which he had been tasked. Accustomed to sitting in a damp and dark office in London, Mr. Dugdale steered the conversation towards politics. Although immensely courteous and tactful, the young Colonel Enoch Powell was not one to hold his tongue, and proceeded to dress down the Chairman on virtually every Tory policy since 1935.

Although it could have been with all reason considered relatively uneventful, this meeting was to change the course of British history. Two days later, the young colonel found himself again in a meeting with Mr. Dugdale, this time accompanied by Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of the South East Asia Command. An opportunity had arisen for Mr. Powell to take his services back to London, his commanding officer said, where he “would best serve his country.” Conveniently, he would also be able to serve the Conservative Party, if he so desired. Mr. Powell accepted the invitation, and left India for London on 1 October 1944.

Initially a researcher within the Conservative Research Department advising on Indian affairs, and still harbouring an ambition to serve as Viceroy of India, Enoch Powell began to find himself noticed for his thoughts on returning British soldiers from the war. His cornerstone idea was a housing policy which differed markedly from the Labour proposal of a massive State building programme.

His proposal included:

• A new Servicemen’s Home Lending Authority, which would guarantee low-cost home mortgages for all returning British servicemen from the war, with no deposit required.
• A new National Housing Authority, which would insure home mortgages for those who had served on the British home front during the war, publish guidelines for property developers, work with private developers to plan “New Towns” across the UK, and establish planning regulations across the whole of the United Kingdom to ensure a speedy building of homes
• Within the National Housing Authority, a Servicemen’s Temporary Housing Authority, which would pay for rent or lodging expenses, for up to one year, for returning British servicemen

Enoch’s plan met with the enthusiastic approval of the Conservative Party, not least his new friend Mr. Dugdale, just as it was becoming increasingly clear that the wartime coalition would not be continued after the war, and the prospect of a general election before the war had entirely finished became a much greater possibility. This willingness to deviate from the specific recommendations of the Beveridge Report, but not necessarily the goals that had been embraced by Prime Minister Churchill on housing led a massive rethink in what Tory Party policy should be in this election.

Partially inspired by the bold vision Enoch had created, in forging an alternative to the political vision of the Labour Party for a centrally planned economy following the end of the war, the Conservative Party began to develop more distinct policies on many areas:

• A National Servicemen’s Act:
  • Guaranteeing unemployment benefit equal to 100% of the average weekly wage up to 1 year following the date the serviceman was demobilised
  • Granting returning servicemen the full cost of tuition for any course of study to which they were accepted by any university or trade school, plus a stipend to live on
  • Establishing a Servicemen’s Business Loan Authority to grant low-cost loans to returning servicemen to establish new businesses
• A National Railways Act, which would leave the railways in private hands, but would establish a National Railways Authority to guarantee loans to the railways to expand services
• A new National Highways Act which would radically increase spending on road infrastructure within the UK
• An Industrial Adjustment Act, which would provide grants to businesses to rebuild property damaged or destroyed during the war, and underwrite low-cost loans to transition from wartime production
• A National Education Act, which would:
  • Establish two new degree-granting universities from the University Colleges in Nottingham and Southampton
  • Create four new “Technical Colleges” (in Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, and London) which would grant technical certifications
  • Establish a new means-tested bursary system

In February 1945, a new public opinion poll for the evermore-likely upcoming general election was released which was initially barely noticed within the Conservative Research Department. The poll showed the Labour Party on course for a massive win in the upcoming general election. However, when young Enoch Powell saw this poll, he identified the grave risk that it posed not only to continued leadership by Churchill and the Tories, but to the implementation of his own carefully crafted policy proposals. He urged Dugdale to immediately begin to build a ground campaign out in the country to counter what had clearly been an incredibly successful campaign by Labour.

On 23 March 1945, Allied troops crossed the Rhine and it became abundantly clear that the war in Europe was rapidly drawing to a close. Although the coalition was still technically in force, the ground campaign suggested by Enoch, manned, uniquely, primarily by the housewives of servicemen, got well underway and Mr. Powell’s proposals became the crux of what was quickly becoming an unofficial election manifesto. Given the dual focus on servicemen and housing in the policy platform now being put forward in this quasi-manifesto, it was frequently summed up as a campaign for “Homes for Heroes”.

In May 1945, as Victory in Europe was declared by a triumphant Winston Churchill and the nation celebrated, the new ground campaign received a further boost as any remaining doubt was removed that a general election would very soon be held and Winston Churchill prepared to lead the Conservative Party into the election. However, this soon brought controversy within the highest echelons of the Tory leadership. Churchill remained completely focused on both the war and foreign affairs and was convinced that the British people would share his concerns. Recalling the dire warnings of Mr. Powell, his newfound friend Thomas Dugdale, Chairman of the Tory Party, requested a dinner with the Prime Minister to discuss electoral strategy. He brought Mr. Powell with him to Chequers on the night of 27 May.

Telling both Mr. Dugdale and Mr. Powell of his intention to address the nation on 4 June, he said he intended to draw a comparison between the horrors of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule even now still being uncovered and the Labour manifesto. Horrified, Mr. Powell implored the Prime Minister to reconsider this and to instead focus on domestic policies. The servicemen did not want to hear the Prime Minister attack his erstwhile government partners for seeking to provide them a better life, and instead wanted to the Prime Minister’s own plans. Mr. Dugdale provided the Prime Minister with a draft manifesto, the three discussed potential talking points to draw from it for his upcoming speech. Impressed with Mr. Powell’s apparent deep connection to the “man at the front” but still unconvinced, the Prime Minister promised to reflect upon these points in the coming days.

On 4 June, Winston Churchill, the man who had shepherded Britain through its darkest hour, addressed the British people with the following speech:

“The British nation have performed yet another of the great feats which have long characterised our people. We have, with the help of our brothers in the Empire, in the United States of America, and across the whole of the European continent, defeated the most pernicious force we have ever seen. It has taken much sacrifice. It has taken much toil.

The Socialists are fighting in this campaign, no doubt in good faith, with proposals which they say will ensure that the British people who have made this possible will enjoy the fruits of this victory. I tell you that they will not. They will, in trying to secure the fruits of this victory, poison the roots of the tree that provides the fruits.

Now, I tell you, I will not suggest that my party has an unblemished record. But I will promise you that under my leadership our proposals are the right ones. We shall ensure that the servicemen who won us this Victory Abroad shall also find Victory at Home. We shall fight this battle with as much vigour as we fought abroad. We shall ensure that our servicemen are able to live like free men, with homes to call their own, taking an education, or starting a business, with all the assistance that His Majesty’s Government can possibly provide.

We have won Victory in Europe. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, we will win Victory in Britain, with the right policies.”

Nearly exactly one month later, on 5 July 1945, the British people returned Mr. Churchill, the wartime hero, the man who many credited with nearly singlehandedly saving democracy in Europe, to power, albeit with a much-reduced majority.

 

[Chris Nation]

 

[Chris Nation]

A Long Road

Just a month following the results of the 1945 general election, on 6 August 1945, the Enola Gay dropped the most consequential bomb in human history on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. This was followed 4 days later with another bomb on Nagasaki and just 6 days from the second bombing, on 15 August 1945, the Empire of Japan surrendered to Allies. The Second World War was over, and Winston Churchill would take his rightful place next to US President Truman as the leader of the victorious Western Allies.

By September, it was clear that caretaker ministry that had been set up by the Prime Minister just before the general election would need to be reshuffled to meet the new demands of peacetime. Although several ministers, especially National Liberals who had lost their seats in the general election, would see reassignment, the most important change would be the creation of a new Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

Winston Churchill summoned the young former intelligence officer responsible for crafting the Tory policy many credited with winning them the election, who had been elected to Parliament for the first time during the recent election, to tell him that he’d like him to carry out his policy in government. “Mr. Powell, you have committed us to something grand. You had better deliver on it.” Enoch Powell accepted the challenge of his life, replying simply to the Prime Minister, “It will be a long road, but I am ready to build it.”

Third Churchill ministry, September 1945

Prime Minister and Minister of Defence: Winston Churchill

Chancellor of the Exchequer: Oliver Stanley

Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons: Anthony Eden

Home Secretary: Sir John Anderson

Minister of Housing and Local Government: Enoch Powell

Colonial Secretary and Leader of the House of Lords: Viscount Cranborne

Dominion Secretary and Lord Privy Seal: Lord Beaverbrook

Secretary of State for India and Burma and President of the Board of Trade: Leo Amery

First Lord of the Admiralty and Minister of Information: Brendan Bracken

Minister of Education: Rab Butler

Minister of National Insurance: Osbert Peake

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries: James Henderson-Stewart

Minister of Labour and National Service: Harold Macmillan

Minister of Health: Henry Willink

Secretary of State for Scotland: Viscount Muirshiel

Secretary of State for War: Sir James Grigg



Meanwhile, negotiations were underway in Washington. John Maynard Keynes, the celebrated economist who had spearheaded the financing strategy of the British war effort, was leading the negotiations. The aim of the negotiations was to deliver a loan to the United Kingdom on massively improved interest rates, which could then be used to finance the rebuilding of the British economy. Churchill himself intervened in these negotiations on several occasions, writing to the United States President, “Britain and the whole of the British Empire stand ready to fight alongside the United States in the next great peril of our age - the scourge of Communism sweeping through the world. Even now, Stalin is preparing the countries of eastern Europe to fall into her brutal grip. Britain is ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with you. But, my God, we need help to do it!”

On hearing that the United States were not prepared to go over $3.75bn in the loan and wanted the convertibility the pound sterling, far from Keynes’ initial expectations of a $5bn grant, the Prime Minister decided that it was time for a visit to his wartime ally, as a show of goodwill and the brotherhood between the British and American people, forged by ties of blood and war, and also to kick the Americans in the shin for being, as Churchill saw it, unscrupulous in taking advantage of Britain. Arriving at Shangri-La in Maryland on 5 October 1945, Prime Minister Churchill gave a short statement to an enthusiastic group of American reporters, before going inside to speak with President Truman.

“Look, Harry, I came here two years ago at the height of the war in Europe. I spoke with your predecessor, Franklin. Franklin knew and understood what was at stake then. We are brothers, America and Britain, but we have run the bloody bottle pretty dry in this war, but I don’t think it’s quite right for a brother to slit the other brother’s throat in exchange for a drink of water! Now, if you’re not going to budge on the amount you’re willing to spare us, at least drop this blasted demand for me to kill the bloody cow just for a single steak! Time, Harry, we need bloody time!”

Truman was slightly bemused. Thinking to himself, “Why do these Brits always feel so entitled to our damn money?!” But, immensely respecting the man who had stood alone against Hitler, he said he’d have a word with the Treasury to see what could be done.

By December, the negotiations were complete. The United Kingdom had secured a loan of $3bn, and, thanks to the intervention of the Prime Minister, and much to Keynes’ immense satisfaction, the hard demand for sterling to become a fully convertible currency was dropped. Britain would commit itself to “free money exchange over time”, but would not be immediately forced to open her exchange controls. In exchange, the parties reiterated their commitment to removing trade barriers which now existed between the United States and the whole of the British Empire, a market ripe for American companies to enter.

Although a smaller loan in dollar terms, this was a momentous triumph for the United Kingdom, and one that was not well understood at the time. This would allow British industry to retain an extremely privileged position within the British Empire, for as long as exchange controls were allowed to insulate the Sterling Area, the strength of the pound could be defended. Churchill and the British negotiators assured dubious US negotiators that Britain wanted to see a day in which the pound could be fully convertible, but simply couldn’t agree to such a fast transition. If the United States wanted a strong partner against communism in the coming storm, Britain would need to be trusted. It is reasonable to wonder whether the American government would have placed such trust in a government of Socialists. Churchill had saved the nation from what, in the words of Keynes, would have otherwise been a financial Dunkirk.

Churchill returned to cabinet and told an ecstatic Chancellor of the Exchequer the news. Most of this money would be earmarked for defence spending, but Britain would have the financial headroom to make good on the Tory promises in the general election. The Chancellor would release the first peacetime budget of Churchill's first peacetime ministry in April 1946.

 

[Chris Nation]

A Labour of Love

When the results of the 1945 general election were announced, many were unsurprised, having expected Churchill to come on top. There were grumblings of discontent from important pockets within the Labour Party, though, who had privately harboured hopes that this would be the year that Labour would finally take hold of the country and enact a grand new vision for it. Talk on the Labour backbench of whether or not Clement Attlee, a man who had led the party to two election defeats over the course of a decade, should step down and allow someone else to lead the party was becoming more common as the summer months drew to a close.

Although some saw the much-increased vote for the Labour Party, not to mention the greatly increased Labour representation in the halls of Westminster, as a credit to the party leader, many looked back to the 1935 leadership election and remembered Herbert Morrison’s challenge to Attlee and wondered whether the party had made the correct choice. Morrison himself had made no small secret of this amongst his small but influential coterie of Labour MPs, including Hugh Dalton. He had also found that many new MPs, including Hugh Gaitskell and George Brown, were sympathetic to his private musings on whether the British people were ready to accept such wide-ranging reforms as had been called for at the general election.

On the other side from the group gathering around Morrison was a group led by the buccaneering Welsh firebrand for socialism, Aneurin Bevan. To Bevan, the election had been fought because the party had not been aggressive enough in calling for radical change. To Bevan, the answer to how the Labour Party should proceed and win even more working-class support was to “Keep Left”. He found a very strong appetite amongst new Labour MPs including Michael Foot, Harold Wilson, Ian Mikardo, and Richard Crossman, as well as from the controversial Chairman of the Labour Party, Harold Laski, who had been denounced by his own party in the 1945 general election for threatening violence to achieve socialism.

For his own part, the leader of the party could sense a slight change in some of his colleagues in the Westminster lobby rooms. He was becoming increasingly worried that his control of the party seemed to be waning. His suspicions seemed to be confirmed on 19 August, Clement Attlee was called on by Ernest Bevin.

“Clement, the vultures are starting to circle for you. Morrison is definitely going to make a leadership challenge, and I think in reaction we’re likely to see the radicals in the party throwing in their lot with Bevan. They don’t think you can win, and they’re not prepared to see the party drift rightward.”

Attlee and Bevin were both well aware that this three-horse race had the potential to split the party. If Morrison and Bevan both launched challenges to his leadership, it was very possible that Attlee could come in a close third and be eliminated in the first round. His support would then trickle to the two increasingly implacably opposed sides. Whoever came second in this race would feel that the party was heading in a fatal direction, and they could even be prepared to leave the party altogether.

The fears of Clement and Ernest were increased when, on 10 September a new member of Parliament, Hugh Gaitskell, used his maiden speech in the House of Commons to call for more rights for trade unions. It was a polite, well-crafted speech, which although excellently delivered would otherwise not have been of note, had it not been for Mr. Gaitskell’s decision to include another line in it.

“Honourable and Right Honourable Members, it grieves me to tell you that there seems to be an element in the country, within my own party even, who are more preoccupied with an academic reading of socialism than with actually improving the lives of that great slice of the country who shall not see benefit from this Tory government. They seem to believe that if only the country were smarter, more enlightened, then it would be they in power, and not my Honourable and Right Honourable friends opposite. They are mistaken! If Socialism is the cause of the people, then we must respond to what the country has told us in this election by moving towards the view of the man on the High Street, not the man in Parliament! It is we who must change, not those who send us here.”

This was greeted with jeers from his own side of the House. Aneurin Bevan looked back in disgust from his position on the opposition frontbench, acutely aware that this upstart may just as well have used Nye’s name in the speech. However, in looking back, he noticed that although those jeering were loudest, it was far from the unanimous position of the Labour members. The bulk of them seemed to be reflected. Some were even clapping. It was becoming ever clearer that Nye would have to take action to save the Labour Party as a force for true Socialism in Great Britain. Nye was still reflecting on the events in the House today when he was called on by the Chairman of the Labour Party, Harold Laski.

“Shameful! Absolutely shameful,” Laski belted out, before even removing his coat. “Who in the HELL does that man think he is?! Trying to lecture us on what socialism is? The man clearly should just bugger off and join the Liberals! If Clement doesn’t do something about these class traitors, we must! They must be purged!” Aware that Laski had approximately zero power to enforce such a purge, Nye merely nodded at the suggestion. After all, it had been Laski’s suggestion that Socialism must be achieved in Great Britain, even if violence were required to do it, that had possibly been yet another tipping point in why Nye was not now building his Socialist utopia. Churchill himself had denounced the remark in the House of Commons, and the Labour Party had been forced to repudiate its own Chairman. Nevertheless, Nye needed friends.

“There will be a great battle Hal, for the soul of our party. It’s clear that the right-wing would like to take our party from us. But what can I do?”

Laski looked incredulously from behind his perfectly rounded spectacles. “Challenge! Nye, you must challenge Clem for the leadership! If you don’t, they’ll do it, and they’ll have all the momentum behind them! You would be surprised how easily some of our comrades are willing to abandon the path, after just one defeat! Nye, the time is now! We cannot afford to wait!”

As October approached, beckoning the new Parliamentary session, Herbert Morrison also felt that the time was ripe to strike out. Although not himself a member of the new “right” of the party, Morrison was much more amenable to a gradualist approach to the implementation of socialism and was thus continuing to attract the support of those less convinced of the benefits of radical socialism and largescale nationalisation of industry in particular. Finally, on 9 October, Morrison and his allies made their move and challenged Clement Attlee for the leadership of the Labour Party.

Immediately, Aneurin declared his intention to stand. The question was now whether Clement Attlee would allow this internecine civil war to consume the party he had built up over the last ten years into a force that was now seen by a large slice of the British people as a credible alternative to the Conservative Party in government. He knew it would be impossible to convince Morrison to stand down, but if he wanted to avert this from developing into a serious split in the party, he had to make a plea for unity to Nye Bevan. Deciding to fight for his life’s work, he called Ernest Bevin and Bevan to dinner.

“Nye, you’ve got to stand down, or we won’t win!” Bevin pleaded. “It will come down to you and Morrison, and you won’t win that fight.”

“Perhaps it is you, Clem, who should stand down and endorse me,” Bevan retorted. “I mean no disrespect, but there is no guarantee that you win against Morrison either. And I won’t sit back and watch this party shirk its duty to real change for the workingmen of this country. And, anyway, I’ve already announced it, I’m standing. I can’t just go back on that now.”

“You have my word, Nye, that if you convince enough of your supporters to back me in the first round so that I come out on top, you shall always have your concerns listened to. And when we enter government, you shall have a free hand to reform health,” said Clem. Bevan knew this was a fair offer. He trusted Attlee, but he was still concerned about how it might appear if he was seen to be swinging the leadership election after he’d made such a fuss in the lobbies of Parliament over the direction the party was heading. He promised he’d consider the Leader’s offer.

Leaving the Leader’s London house, he decided to return to the House to contemplate his decision in his office. It was getting late and the halls were empty. He made it to his office in the and lit a cigarette. Weighing up the options, he felt that the best way to ensure that true Socialism lived to fight another day in the Labour Party was to preserve the status quo under Clem. He and his allies would be sidelined for years if Morrison became leader. If the party went into the next election having abandoned its major commitments, there was a danger that the left of the party may whither and die. He made his mind up. He’d quietly shift support to Attlee in the first round, and then lobby all his supporters to back him in the second round.

On leaving his office, he noticed another figure walking through the halls. As he approached him, he recognised him as the upstart MP who had challenged him in the House. Gaitskell smiled faintly as he passed by Nye and slightly doffed his cap.

“Ah, if it isn’t the red Tory,” Bevan muttered under his breath. Gaitskell gave a quick glance back and didn’t say anything in reply. However, there was a look in the young MP’s eye that told Bevan that no matter what happened in this leadership contest, he likely hadn’t heard the last of that man.

 

[Chris Nation]

 

[Chris Nation]

A Home for Heroes

The plan for the demobilisation of the British Armed Services had been carefully crafted in September 1944 by the then-Minister of Labour and National Service, Ernest Bevin. This initial plan had been created with the idea that the war in Asia would take significantly longer to resolve, even after hostilities in Europe had concluded. This was modified significantly following the surrender of Japan and revised yet again following the general election in June. Bevin’s 1944 plan had deviated significantly from the Conservatives’ initial proposal to favour married men, in a bid to release more manpower for British industry, rather than Bevin’s plan to favour married women and men over the age of 50, on grounds of compassion. In the end, the government revived the compromise proposition for a points-based system which would factor in age, length of service, and marital status. This would still have the effect of releasing younger, and married men, more quickly. By Christmas 1945, 2 million of the 5 million British servicemen had been demobilised and allowed to return home. By Easter 1946, demobilisation was largely complete, with 3.5 million British servicemen released from military service by that date.

Although these men were greatly needed back in the factories, demobilisation brought the first great test of the Tory government’s ability to deliver their promises to returning British servicemen. Each of these men were now entitled to a raft of new benefits, including, most pressingly, a benefit which would entitle them to a housing allowance for one year following the end of the war. This was to present a great opportunity to returning younger British servicemen, as they were not to be compelled to return to their family homes, but could instead take this opportunity to relocate themselves where jobs were in highest demand – and therefore where wages were highest. In particular, this would lead many of these servicemen to select new areas near the sites of massive building plans, which had already begun construction during the war, but suffered from chronic labour shortages.

Applications for accommodation help in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow in particular far outpaced the expected numbers based on where servicemen had enlisted from. This had the effect of pushing up rents for new accommodations in these areas, which would be borne by the British Treasury. However, it was plain to see that these increasing prices would further kindle interest in these areas from property developers, seeking to both rebuild areas damaged by the war, and also to build new housing in these areas in the expectation that many of these demobilised servicemen would stay on permanently.

In addition to Easter 1946 being a watershed for the fact that a very large proportion of British servicemen had been demobilised by that date, it also marked another important milestone. On 23 April 1946, just two days after Easter, the very first home loan underwritten by the Servicemen’s Home Lending Authority was issued to a demobilised British Army sergeant and his wife and three children. The occasion was marked with a visit to the family at their new home in Slough, just west of London, by the Minister for Housing and Local Government, Enoch Powell. The visit to Slough seemed particularly propitious for the young Minister, for it lay just inside his envisioned “Commuter Belt” around London. Drawing on earlier plans by Sir Patrick Abercrombie, he was now envisioning a ring of suburban development around not only London, but also Birmingham, Manchester, and other major cities, which could be the sites of low-cost housing for returning British servicemen.