1. What was Attlee’s legacy?
Starter: What is the story behind this cartoon?
Challenge: Why has the cartoonist drawn this?

2. The War Cabinet ( )
Between 1940 and 1945, Britain had been governed by a ‘national government’ led by Winston Churchill. It contained MPs from all the major parties and took Britain through the Second World War.
By May 1945, the Labour Party were keen to return to politics and fight a general election.
Churchill was not willing to dissolve Parliament at this time, as Britain and the allies were still fighting the Japanese in the Pacific theatre of war, but was forced to by the other members of coalition government.
Throughout the Second World War, Britain had seen massive change – it was slowly drifting to the left (inspired by the Beveridge Report). The Labour Party too had changed dramatically during this period.

3. Ernest Bevin (Minister of Labour)
Lord Beaverbrook (Minister of Aircraft Production)
Sir Kingsley Wood (Chancellor of the Exchequer)
Anthony Eden (Foreign Secretary
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister
Clement Attlee, Lord Privy Seal and Depute Prime Minister

4. The Labour Campaign
The Labour manifesto, Let us Face the Future Together, offered the nation a radical departure from the past, including comprehensive social security, a national health service and the nationalisation of major industries.
It used the Beveridge Report as it’s blue print.
The Labour Party and its allies in the media ran an effective propaganda war on the home front.
They vilified members of the pre-war Conservative party as having been appeasers of Hitler, and of having been responsible for the failure to re-arm Britain.
They painted the 1930s in dismal colours as an era of poverty and mass unemployment. At the same time, they held out the prospect of a new social order that would ensure better housing, free medical services and employment for all.

8. How bad was poverty by 1945?
 3.6 million homes were destroyed (20% of the total) by German bombing during the Second World War.
Sickness benefit could be as little as 10 shillings a week, which was not enough to live off. Healthcare cost money – a doctor’s visit could cost the equilivilant to half a week’s wages, so most people relied on good fortune rather than medical advice to see them safely through an illness.
In many British cities, slum housing was still very common – cities like Manchester and Glasgow looked very different than they had 100 years before.
When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, unemployment hit 70% in many areas of Britain.
By 1945, 6% of the eligible workforce were unemployment. Poverty stood at around 10% of the population.
Too many children left school at 14 without any qualifications and went into low paid jobs.

9. The Beveridge Report, 1942
Officially entitled Social Insurance and Allied Services, was an influential document in the founding of the welfare state which was published in November 1942.
It was chaired by the Liberal economist William Beveridge, who identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease, and went on to propose widespread reform to the system of social welfare to address these.
The report recommended both National Insurance and the creation of a National Health Service.
The Report came in the midst of war, and promised a reward for the sacrifices undertaken by everyone. Highly popular with the public, the report formed the basis for the post-war reforms known as the Welfare State.
Attlee’s Labour Party planned to use this report as a blue print for their “New Britain”.

10. The Conservative Campaign
Most observers, including the Soviet leader Stalin, believed the Tories would win, despite the publication of opinion polls that showed Labour six points ahead of the Conservatives.
Churchill had been an incredibly popular and successful war leader.
Tory campaign based around Churchill’s personality as war leader – they were out of touch with the public’s new mood (in favour of social reform). To many voters they remained the party of appeasement, unemployment and the means test.
Churchill and Tory media mogul Lord Beaverbrook based much of their campaign rhetoric on the dangers posed to democratic institutions by Labour's proposals for a welfare state and the nationalisation of key industries. Churchill even went as far as to stay that if Labour were elected it would need to "fall back on some kind of Gestapo" to implement its policies.

11. Results
The result was not called until 3 weeks after polling day to allow those overseas in the military to vote.
The result was a surprise to everyone – Labour received 48% of the vote and won a majority of 146 seats.
Labour had gained 239 seats – a massive swing at this time!
The vote represented more a rejection of the Conservative Party than of Winston Churchill's performance as a war-leader. (Churchill was another astounded at the result).
Labour's success was down to its ability to persuade the voters that only it was capable of building the post-war world that the majority of the population desired. Churchill's refusal to embrace the Beveridge Report whole-heartedly cost him dearly as did the public's perception that he was a "man of war" and not a suitable peacetime leader.

14. The Creation of a Post-War Consensus
Many of Attlee’s policies were maintained by future governments (both Labour and Conservatives) between 1951 and This is known as a Post-War “Consensus”. It involved:
Belief in welfare provision for all
A National Health Service
Nationalisation of Industry and Public Utilities
An economy based on Keynseian Economics (During difficult times, government intervention an stimulate demand. Government can borrow and spend. Employment is more important than inflation – aim to keep it as low as possible)
National Insurance reform 1946
Social Security (nuclear weapon program)
Full Employment
Foreign policy (anti-Communist Cold War policy, decolonisation, close ties to NATO and to the United States)

15. Learning Task
On the diagram your teacher has given you, use the information to explain how Attlee’s Labour Government tackled the ‘Five Giants’ between 1945 and 1951.