Conservatives in 1945.

What if the Conservatives won the 1945 general election in Britain? How would Britain and the world be differant with Churchill as Prime Minister between 1945-50 instead of Clement Atlee?
 

Cook

Banned
Well for one thing Churchill’s legacy would be a lot more tarnished; the only way the Conservatives were going to win the 1945 General Election was by rigging it, something Stalin was surprised that they didn’t do.
 
A Tory victory in 1945 is near implausible, the electorate blamed them for the economic crisis in the 1930's and for the debacles of Norway, France and Singapore in the early part of the War. Also in contrast to Labour the Tories had allowed their national organisation to atrophy in the war years and Churchill proved a pretty poor campaigner, witness the infamous "Gestapo" broadcast.

If they had got their grass roots in shape and fought a better campaign in 1945 then they could have limited Labour's majority and that in itself would have had major implications in following years. It was the scale of Labour's victory that caused many Tories to accept the post war consensus in it's entireity. A narrower victory could have meant they challenged aspects such as nationalisation while retaining the NHS and the Welfare State.
 
Also, the British people were tired of war and depression.

The promise of a welfare state was appealing to almost everyone at the time. Britain was exhausted, tired and was just a few weeks away from bankrupcy. The horrible abyss of the war was something people wanted to put behind them and that's something they probably wouldn't have been able to do with Churchll as PM.

Atlee changed Britain more than any other PM in the 20th Century (except maybe Margaret Thatcher) If the Conservatives had won, there would have been no NHS.

I woner what would have hapened to the industries that were nationalised during, or just after the war such as the rail companies and the coal mines.
 
The "NHS" would have happened but it would have been a very different system and under the control of local authorities as opposed to Whitehall controlled. This was actually closer to Beveridge's vision and was shared by many in Labour such as Herbert Morrison, however Bevan nationalised the lot mainly as a sop to Labour's left wing.

As for the industries, the biggest single criticism I make of the Atlee Government was it thought that nationalisation in itself would improve British industry, the problem wasn't ownership but inefficiency together with outdated management and working practices. Had Labour not been so obsessed about ownership of the means of supply then attention could have been focused on modernising and improving British industry as well as investing in new products. What Britain really needed post 1945 was something like dirigisme instead of Fabianism.
 
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