Kill the British Post-war Consensus before it comes into existence

[Meadow]

Pretty simple proposition, but I imagine it'll be quite hard to put together.

Basically, how could the Tories have won in 1951 (or 50) and begun to roll back much of what Labour had done since 45? I'm not so much looking for a PoD that says 'none of it worked/it worked even less/it wasn't popular', but more a way of the Tories winning the election with someone at the helm (say Winnie took early retirement in 1945) who didn't want to accept these new ideas into any British consensus.

In short, what I'm looking for (in that this is what came into my head earlier) is who could lead the Tory party (along with his/her allies) in the 1951 election and form a government that would stop the creation of the post-war consensus in its tracks?

Feel free to propose other PoDs, though the other is the one I'm most interested in. Was there anyone prominent enough in the Tories to have had the 'guts' to roll it all back again, or at least downplay its role in Britain and maybe bring 80s Conservatism forward by a few decades? Or was it an impossibility? I've been wracking my brains and wondering whether this whole thing is even possible. Do enlighten me with your own ideas, please.

(and hello, nice to be here. If I've a TL in history-book form I'd like to start posting, am I allowed to just start a thread here and start posting it, or is there more protocol to be fulfilled?)

 

[RogueBeaver]

No one. Remember, The Road to Serfdom had only just been published in '44, and Churchill and the entire Tory frontbench had largely accepted the Beveridge report. Some of the more outrageous nationalizations such as steel were privatized "denationalized" but much was left untouched. Most of the One Nationals were members of the Class of 1950, most prominently Ted Heath. Until the 1960s, the only two Tories of any stature to oppose the consensus were Enoch Powell and Peter Thorneycroft. Powell is Powell and Thorneycroft is the longest of long shots in any Tory leadership selection. If you can get Thorneycroft elected leader sometime in the 1960s, that would help. But he would only be able to implement the original Selsdon Park manifesto of 1970: not full-blown Thatcherism as we know it today. That only becomes viable after the Greece-lite of the 1970s, and the public is willing to accept such radical measures. Even Thatcher at the height of her power had to continually deny that she was privatizing the NHS. Perhaps Thorneycroft guts it, so as to leave a bare-bones operation for the poorest in society, with most on private insurance. That's de facto privatization.

 

[RogueBeaver]

Also, in the 1930s Baldwin and Churchill had followed an orthodox fiscal policy: inflation was near-zero but unemployment was double-digits for most of that period. Postwar such a thing would be intolerable to the electorate, particularly returning veterans who wanted a middle-class standard of living. Not so much the fabled "Nasty Party" of the Thatcher era but more "benign neglect".

 

[StevenAttewell]

Also, in the 1930s Baldwin and Churchill had followed an orthodox fiscal policy: inflation was near-zero but unemployment was double-digits for most of that period. Postwar such a thing would be intolerable to the electorate, particularly returning veterans who wanted a middle-class standard of living. Not so much the fabled "Nasty Party" of the Thatcher era but more "benign neglect".

This is the big one - an openly hardline Conservative Party isn't going to win in 1951. Keep in mind that Labour got 200,000 more votes than the Tories in 1951, and the Conservative majority was only 22. With a hardline Tory leader, we're likely to see a second Attlee term. (which incidentally I have not seen on AH and would be quite interesting, hint hint)

 

[Dunois]

I think that a much better way to "kill" the post war consensus is simply to make sure that it does not happen in the first place. However as RogueBeaver pointed out, a full blown return to the austerity politics of the 1930s is impossible, which means that the Conservatives would have to propose radical policies themselves or loose to Labour as happened OTL.

This could however leave room for an alternative welfare state based on conservative or classical liberal principles, possibly including he following things:
-A much wider roll-out of grammar schools as part of the 1944 Education Act, possibly even including a grant system for higher education. I however suspect that some opposition from "landed" Conservatives against such a radical scheme would have taken place.
-Some form of universal dividend replacing unemployment benefit, state pension and child benefit. Coupled with the tax system this could eliminate the poverty trap as well as providing a basic income to everyone.
-Some from of tax free lifetime saving account (a la 401k), could encounter opposition from banks but would also provide a strong incentive to possess a bank account.
-A different NHS, perhaps on a local instead of a national basis.
-Limitd nationalisation of coal and the railways, but no nationalisation of heavy industry.

However in order to pay for this in the long run, Britain MUST avoid the labour unrests and the loss of industrial competitivity in the long run.

 

[StevenAttewell]

I've never understood how these fine distinctions actually make a philosophical or practical difference.

How is a guaranteed minimum income any less statist than unemployment benefit, state pension and child benefit? If anything, it's somewhat more statist, in that it holds forth the principle that the state owes its citizens the right to "live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society."

What is the difference between a lifetime savings account and the Post Office Savings Bank? Wouldn't this be rather duplicative?

How is a decentralized NHS less statist than a national one? The Swedish health care system is decentralized to the county and municipal levels, but it's still a social-democratic system; likewise, the Canadian system is run at the provincial levels, but it still bans private health insurance.

Honestly, the only difference I see here is slightly less nationalization. And if this is proposed and passed by a Conservative government in 1951, I really don't see how this is not a post-war consensus.

 

[RogueBeaver]

The only way for the Tories to win in 1945 or anytime until the 1960s at the absolute earliest is me-tooism. "Butskellism" was an accurate summary for very good reasons. Welfare statism is fundamentally incompatible with classical liberal ideology, period. Except the Tories did not espouse classical liberalism at the time.

Dunois: What you are proposing is that the Tories become an Old Labour clone. That is ASB.

Tory 1930s fiscal policy (under Baldwin, not the Keynesian One National Chamberlain) was monetarism in all but name. Was the economy stable? Yes. Taking the 1929 CPI as 100, the 1933 level was 84, better than the United States and most of Europe. 1945 had little to do with Churchill or the Tory programme: it was simply that voters remembered who had presided over 15% unemployment for nearly a decade, and who was promising a "New Jerusalem". Excepting 1924*, the Tories had been in office for over two decades, since the fall of Lloyd George. They had grown tired in office: not that anyone on either frontbench was much younger than 60.

To give a Canadian example: Mackenzie King, seeking his sixth term in 1945, had carefully positioned himself as a centrist between the Bay Street-beholden Tories and the socialist CCF. He scraped a majority of 3, but here are the main domestic planks of the Liberals. If the housing could be built with private funds, this might work for Churchill (a contemporary and longtime friend of King's) as well. In 2010 CAD, this works out to roughly $9 billion, which is money Britain did not have in 1945.

750 million to provide land, jobs and business support for veterans;
$400 million of public spending to build housing;
$250 million for family allowances;
establishing an Industrial development Bank;
loans to farmers, floor prices for agricultural products;
tax reductions.

 

[Arachnid]

As much as I loathe and blame the post-war consensus it was pretty much inevitable. While some tinkering around the edges is possible and might mitigate its massive ill effects the basic issue is that the majority of the population wanted a cradle-to-grave welfare state and economy regulated so as to provide full employment. And in a democracy when the majority of the population want something, even if its dumb, they get it.

 

[Dunois]

How is a guaranteed minimum income any less statist than unemployment benefit, state pension and child benefit? If anything, it's somewhat more statist, in that it holds forth the principle that the state owes its citizens the right to "live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society."

It avoids clientelism full stop and has the huge positive effect of making benefit administration a great deal more efficicent that it presently is!

While your sentence about the "standards prevailing in the society" could be interpreted in may different ways by many different politics of varying ideologies. This principle is nonetheless already in force in the United Kingdom and was already in force, since the implementation of the jobseeker allowance back in the 1910s.
It also is worth noting that the 1945 Conservative Party Manifesto mentionned the creation of vaious benefits, such as family allowance. A basic income is thus conceivable in some form or the other.

What is the difference between a lifetime savings account and the Post Office Savings Bank? Wouldn't this be rather duplicative?

To an extent it would, but on the other hand this saving account would be tax free and provided by banks.
The idea has been proposed by the Conservative Part in a past manifesto (2005) and has a lot of merit. Someone could very well come up with it 1945 as a way to stirr the debate away from pure welfare towards incentives to sav and act responsibly instead.

How is a decentralized NHS less statist than a national one? The Swedish health care system is decentralized to the county and municipal levels, but it's still a social-democratic system; likewise, the Canadian system is run at the provincial levels, but it still bans private health insurance.

It is inherently less statist in the sense that the burden of responsibility is shifted away from the state and toward local government. National targets and the like would be much harder to implement under a localised system and there would also be a degree of "competition" among local authorities.
Many alternatives exists for a different NHS, the most obvious one being a state funded insurance system like the French Sécurité Sociale. This would encounter a lot less opposition from doctors like the NHS did and maintain the independence of medical professionals. On the other hand such a system costs a lot more in the long run ...

Honestly, the only difference I see here is slightly less nationalization. And if this is proposed and passed by a Conservative government in 1951, I really don't see how this is not a post-war consensus.

You can't avoid some form of welfare state and therefore the key is to make it more "conservative" and to ideally prevent it from becoming the behemoth that it subsequetly became.

Having said that, the 1945 Conservatives won't have the 65 years of hindsight that we now have in that regard ...

 

[StevenAttewell]

It avoids clientelism full stop and has the huge positive effect of making benefit administration a great deal more efficicent that it presently is!

While your sentence about the "standards prevailing in the society" could be interpreted in may different ways by many different politics of varying ideologies. This principle is nonetheless already in force in the United Kingdom and was already in force, since the implementation of the jobseeker allowance back in the 1910s.
It also is worth noting that the 1945 Conservative Party Manifesto mentionned the creation of vaious benefits, such as family allowance. A basic income is thus conceivable in some form or the other.

It's still statist, though - the state is still giving money to people on the basis that the state has an obligation to uphold minimum standards of existence. In that sense, arguably a UI/child allowance/old age pension system is a more conservative approach - benefits are conditioned on the basis of some special condition, and the normal status is assumed to be that of a non-benefit-receiving worker.

It's less bureaucratic, but not less statist. Less statist would be if the state contributed to or subsidized private pension systems (as is the case in corporatist welfare states like Germany, France, and ironically, the U.S), or provided pensions to a smaller subset of the population.

BTW - the sentence in question is part of T.H Marshall's definition of social citizenship.

To an extent it would, but on the other hand this saving account would be tax free and provided by banks.
The idea has been proposed by the Conservative Part in a past manifesto (2005) and has a lot of merit. Someone could very well come up with it 1945 as a way to stirr the debate away from pure welfare towards incentives to sav and act responsibly instead.

But the National Savings Bank already supplies tax-free savings accounts. So is the difference that banks should be given hidden subsidies in the form of state guarantees and tax-free incentives?

It is inherently less statist in the sense that the burden of responsibility is shifted away from the state and toward local government. National targets and the like would be much harder to implement under a localised system and there would also be a degree of "competition" among local authorities.
Many alternatives exists for a different NHS, the most obvious one being a state funded insurance system like the French Sécurité Sociale. This would encounter a lot less opposition from doctors like the NHS did and maintain the independence of medical professionals. On the other hand such a system costs a lot more in the long run ...

Local states are still states. Statism is about public/private, not national/local. The French or Swedish systems are more local than the NHS, but they aren't less statist - except to the extent that private providers and payers are involved.

You can't avoid some form of welfare state and therefore the key is to make it more "conservative" and to ideally prevent it from becoming the behemoth that it subsequetly became.

Having said that, the 1945 Conservatives won't have the 65 years of hindsight that we now have in that regard ...

Except that this is in no way more conservative or less statist - with the exception of nationalization, and most importantly, I don't see how this obviates a post-war consensus.

Assuming for the sake of argument that the Conservatives win in 1945 and implement this program, I really don't see Labour running against it in 1951.

 

[mtg999]

Welfare statism is fundamentally incompatible with classical liberal ideology, period.

Whilst most classical liberals are skeptical and/or opposed to welfare statism, I would have to say that they are not necessarily fundamentally incompatible with each other (although they often are).

For instance, both France and Denmark are welfare states. However, which one has a system more compatible (or at least less antagonistic) to classical liberalism? Whilst Denmark has a significantly larger level of welfare spending than France, I would say that it is more classical liberal than France, due to far less regulation of business.

Certainly all other things being equal a large welfare state is a hindrance to a classical liberal view of the world. However I would regard the 'all other things' as generally more important (these other things being the amount of 'red tape' affecting businesses, the ease of hiring/firing workers, the amount of privatisation/nationalisation, etc).

I think the key in a plausible way to at least signficantly altering the British post-war consensus, is to get the Tories to support delivering social services through market-based methods as much as possible.

For instance, I noted on the thread about Canadian political parties in Political Chat (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=156846), that in Australia, we have our income-related retirement pension system delivered through market-based individual accounts.

Perhaps the Tories (and this would have to go back to their response to the Beveridge Report) reject the idea of National Insurance per se (keeping the Income Support, or National Assistance as it was known then, part as a safety net for the poorest) and instead mandate market-based social insurance programs, perhaps subsidised by the government?

 

[RogueBeaver]

That's precisely what Thatcher tried to with the internal market in the NHS, and she got a good deal of flak for doing so.

 

[StevenAttewell]

Perhaps the Tories (and this would have to go back to their response to the Beveridge Report) reject the idea of National Insurance per se (keeping the Income Support, or National Assistance as it was known then, part as a safety net for the poorest) and instead mandate market-based social insurance programs, perhaps subsidised by the government?

I don't see the Tories rejecting the Beveridge Report and winning in 1945. In fact, they'd get crushed even harder than they did OTL. The Beveridge Plan was universally popular, to the extent that the biggest fear people had was that neither party would actually enact it. Think about how easy it would be for Labour to run against "a safety net for the poorest" in 1945: the Tories want to go back to means tests and the poor house and don't give a toss for the working class, Labour believes in freedom from want for all! On the classical liberal front, I really don't see how a large public institution that taxes heavily and then redistributes wealth away from market outcomes can be considered compatible with classical liberal philosophy. Yes, classical liberals are also against regulation, but there's a common thread of opposition to state intervention in the workings of the market. Pragmatically, a classical liberal can say that a welfare state is less bad than other forms of intervention (which to my eyes shows the higher priority placed on the needs of capitalists than any actual commitment to individual liberty), but it's still a divergence from principle.

 

[RogueBeaver]

Which is precisely how the Tories could enact de facto privatization without self-thermonuking of de jure: reduce the funding to leave a net for the poorest and encourage private insurance for everyone else. Thatcher thought about trying this but (thankfully) decided not to. The fundamental problem is that the lower-middle class Tory voters need the "core" services to maintain that middle class status, and they won't accept a "class demotion" in the name of free-market ideology.

 

[mtg999]

Which is precisely how the Tories could enact de facto privatization without self-thermonuking of de jure: reduce the funding to leave a net for the poorest and encourage private insurance for everyone else. Thatcher thought about trying this but (thankfully) decided not to.

I am rather surprised that you, as a conservative, would be of that opinion. I'm not trying to suggest that conservatives don't care at all for social services, which is what some left-wingers believe.

What I mean is that here in Australia, conservatives tend to support as much private provision as possible, even the point ironically of providing public subsidies for private provision.

I don't really want to go on too much about the Australian system too much, but it is what I know most about (I don't know that much about the French public health system, which has quite high level of private provision) and I think it is definitely similar to the sort of thing that a more right-wing Tory party might implement regarding healt-care in the 1950's.

In Australia we have Medicare, which is our version of the NHS. It is a universal health-care program, with almost no mean-testing of basic services. However, there are a variety of policy features in the Australian tax and private health insurance system which strongly encourage those who can afford private health insurance to take it out.

These features are:

1/ Private Health Insurance Rebate: The government pay 30% of the premiums of all insured persons under 65 yo. The susbsidy increases to 35% for those 65-74yo and 40% for those 75yo or over. The rebate can either be taken as a reduction in premiums (the insurance fund is re-imbursed by the government) or as a refundable tax offset ( I think that most people take the reduction in premiums option, though I'm not sure.) This rebate encourages as many people as possible, particularly lower-middle class people to take out private health insurance, when they otherwise would not.


2/Medicare Levy Surchage: All tax-payers pay a Medicare Levy of 1.5% of their taxable income. This is similar to National Insurance Contributions in the UK, but only to fund health-care, not social benefits. The Surchage is a surchage of high-income earners who DO NOT have at least a minimum level of basic hospital cover. The Surchage is an additional 1% of taxable income. The Surchage takes effect when income is higher than AUS$70 000 for single persons and $AUS140 000 for couples and single parents.* The surchage encourages the rich and upper-middle income earners to take our private health insurance.


3/Lifetime Health Cover (LHC): Every year over the age of 30 that a person DOES NOT have private health insurance, their premiums increase by 2% until the age of 60. If a person takes out insurance prior to age 30, the premiums never rise with age. LHC is to discourage people only taking out insurance when they older, therefore driving the cost of premiums up.


Another feature of Australian private health insurance, which I understand is quite unusual is 'community rating'; here premiums are based on a univeral figure for all persons and not based on sex, age, occupation or health status (there are no medical tests permitted). The most insurers may do is to put an exclusion period of usually 6-24 months for those with serious per-existing conditions.

Whilst there are many areas which a more right-wing Tory party in the 1950's could reform, I would assume that the NHS would be one of the first targets; it is definitely one of the most statist/bureaucratic elements of the post-war consensus.

This does not mean that the Tories would create some sort of classical liberal 'paradise'; indeed there are some areas where regulations may have to increase.

For instance, at present are private health insurance premiums regulated the government in the UK?

Here in Australia, insurers must seek government approval whenever they wish to increase their premiums (approval is almost always granted). In a simlar system in the UK, where insurers de-facto become quasi-government contractors, it is likely that they would face increased regulation.



*Whilst I don't have exact figures, in 2010 the median per capita income was around AUS$56 000 and the median household income was around AUS$100 000.

 

[RogueBeaver]

mtg999: I would completely support such a policy of gutting and encouraging private insurance, but I would be thankful that she did not commit electoral suicide for doing it. As I said, the main reason many of Thatcher's most radical policies were not executed was because her lower-middle class base would have to accept a "class demotion" without the welfare state's core services such as the NHS.

 

[Fletch]

The only way to kill the post-war consensus, rather than worrying about the actual politics of 1945, is rather shortening the war itself. For example, you could have a better led-France which stops the Nazis and turns them back, defeating them in 1940.

This means that there is no national government, no blitz and Chamberlain, meaning the national government is not smashed and continues into the 1940-41 election.

With less reason for urgency and need to rebuild after a war which smashed the nation, there is less reason to build a consensus.

 

[Devolved]

Pretty simple proposition, but I imagine it'll be quite hard to put together.

Basically, how could the Tories have won in 1951 (or 50) and begun to roll back much of what Labour had done since 45? I'm not so much looking for a PoD that says 'none of it worked/it worked even less/it wasn't popular', but more a way of the Tories winning the election with someone at the helm (say Winnie took early retirement in 1945) who didn't want to accept these new ideas into any British consensus.

In short, what I'm looking for (in that this is what came into my head earlier) is who could lead the Tory party (along with his/her allies) in the 1951 election and form a government that would stop the creation of the post-war consensus in its tracks?

/QUOTE]

The Tories did roll back a little of Labour's reforms.

A significant turning point for the post war consensus could be the 1958 budget. There was a small recession (by previous and later standards) that frightened the Depression era haunted Tories. So they went for massive reflation which led to the resignation of Enoch Powell and Thorneycroft (I think).

In 1959 the Tories won a landslide but perhaps they could still have won without reflation albeit with a reduced majority. The British people had already rejected pure red socialism by the mid 1950's and preferred a social democracy instead.

Instead of a Keynesian reflationary budget you get the radical Tories convincing Macmillan to go for a low inflation low interest rate economy instead. If he's worried about unemployment then convince him lower immigration from the Commonwealth would mean that jobs would be still available.

You buy off the working class with immigration restrictions and tax cuts. You then save money by reducing subsidies to loss making industries more aggressively. You also bring the British army home from an empire that was no longer useful.

 

[Lord Douglas]

If Churchill had appointed Oliver Stanley (who died suddenly in 1950 OTL) or Oliver Lyttleton Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1951 instead of Butler you may have figures rather more sympathetic towards the case for rolling back the frontiers of the state, as these two men were more pro-free market than Rab Butler who was appointed IOTL. However by 1951 there are limits as to how far you can go. If Labour came in with a smaller majority in 1945, or the Allies were better prepared in the Phoney War period and defeated Hitler by 1941, you may have a better chance of avoiding the post-war consensus.

 

[Andrew Hudson]

I think you would have to go back earlier and tackle issues such as the Beveridge Report and the 1944 Education Act that in a way laid the foundations. The best way to kill the Post War consensus would be for Halifax or someone less keen to carry on with war war to come to power and reach an agreement with Nazi Germany then there would be a different post war consesnus and a government of the right although not as right wing as the Vichy regime. The whole process of fighthing a war relied on a lot of collectivism and state intervention and there was a sort of consensus for change in 1945. As others have pointed out, the Tories would have been backing a loser had they opposed it.