History of the Labour Party (UK)

Following the 1945 general election landslide under Clement Attlee (1945–1951) it set up the welfare state with the National Health Service, nationalised a fifth of the economy, joined NATO and opposed the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

In some areas (particularly Birmingham and Glasgow) there was active pressure in support of municipal housing and slum clearance schemes, while there was also continued agitation (in relation to the Board of guardians) for improved treatment both of the unemployed and other classes of paupers, particularly the disabled and the aged.

[31] The 1923 general election was fought on the Conservatives' protectionist proposals; although they got the most votes and remained the largest party, they lost their majority in parliament, requiring a government supporting free trade to be formed.

Under pressure from its Liberal allies as well as the Conservative opposition who feared that the budget was unbalanced, the Labour government appointed a committee headed by Sir George May to review the state of public finances.

On 24 August 1931 MacDonald submitted the resignation of his ministers and led a small number of his senior colleagues, most notably Snowden and Dominions Secretary J. H. Thomas, in forming the National Government with the other parties.

Labour councils sought to administer the means test in the most favourable terms possible, which involved accepting a higher percentage of applications for transitional benefit than in non-Labour localities and providing the maximum rate of relief available.

[61] In Rhondda, the dominant Labour council introduced progressive measures such as free milk for children from poor households which helped to counteract some of the worst effects of the Great Depression, while in Swansea, a government grant was obtained to finance a number of civic building projects, the means test was exercised relatively humanely and a nursery school was opened.

Some "Tory Shylockisms", brought about by economy cuts, were abolished: more country scholarships were introduced and prizes were restored, while children in residential schools benefited from an increase in educational visits, in pocket money, and a camp holiday each year.

[68] The Poplar Guardians justified the generous scales of relief they paid out, together with their abandonment of principles of less eligibility in terms of a politics of redistribution of the financial burden of unemployment, stating that If society cannot organise its economic affairs so as to provide work for all its able-bodied members, then society as a whole should provide them with adequate maintenance from national funds, obtained under existing conditions by increased taxation upon the large and superfluous incomes of those whose social position is maintained only as a result of 'preying on the poorThe actions of the Labour Guardians were arguably justified on the grounds that Poplar carried a heavier burden than many other boroughs in carrying the costs of poor relief.

[20] While serving in coalition with the Conservatives, the Labour members of Churchill's cabinet were able to put their ideals into practice, implementing a wide range of progressive social and economic reforms which did much to improve the living standards and working conditions of working-class Britons.

[20] Tom Johnston used his position as Secretary of State for Scotland to push through a range of important developmental initiatives, such as the development of hydroelectricity in the Scottish Highlands, while Hugh Dalton's regional policies directly assisted some of the Labour Party's strongest cores of support.

This included a reference to "improved labour standards, economic advancement and social security" which had been inserted by the War Cabinet into a draft prepared by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and had actually been insisted on by Bevin.

Morrison is also noted to have worked hard for increases in pay and allowances for Civil Defence and War Reserve police, and in the end flat gratuities were authorised for whole-timers "who had done such a fine job in the blitz."

By the end of the war, the joint production committees were intervening in areas once considered to be the sacrosanct domain of employers, such as health, welfare, transfers of labour, machine staffing, technology, piece rate fixing, and wage payment systems.

At a secret meeting in January 1947, Attlee and six cabinet ministers, including Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, decided to proceed with the development of Britain's nuclear weapons programme,[39] in opposition to the pacifist and anti-nuclear stances of a large element inside the Labour Party.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell introduced prescription charges for NHS dentures and spectacles, causing Bevan, along with Harold Wilson (President of the Board of Trade) to resign over the dilution of the principle of free treatment.

In Newcastle, under the leadership of the visionary but corrupt T. Dan Smith, an accelerated "modernisation" of the city took place, as characterised by an ambitious programme of road construction and public building and the replacement of slum terraces with new innovative estates such as the Byker "wall".

Labour revisionism turned out to be a powerful ideological tendency within the Party in the 1950s and 1960s, taking intellectual sustenance from Anthony Crosland's book, The Future of Socialism (1956) and political leadership from Hugh Gaitskell.

Recognising the negative impact that wage restraint was having on the living standards of ordinary workers, the government introduced expansionary budgets in March and October 1977 and again in April 1978, which were partly designed to boost take home pay in real terms via tax reductions.

Nevertheless, according to the same study, the government failed to ensure that cuts in expenditure growth "did not hit some areas of education where working class children or adults were most likely to be affected; nor did it make much impact on redistributing existing resources".

The numbers voting Labour hardly changed between February 1974 and 1979, but in 1979 the Conservative Party achieved big increases in support in the Midlands and South of England, mainly from the ailing Liberals, and benefited from a surge in turnout.

As noted by the historian Eric Shaw: "In the seventeen years that it occupied office, Labour accomplished much in alleviating poverty and misery, and in giving help and sustenance to groups – the old, the sick, the disabled – least capable of protecting themselves in a market economy.

The Bennites were in the ascendency and there was very little that the right could do to resist or water down the manifesto, many also hoped that a landslide defeat would discredit Michael Foot and the hard left of the party moving Labour away from explicit Socialism and towards weaker social-democracy.

Much of the press, particularly the sections backing the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, attacked both the Labour Party's manifesto and its style of campaigning, which tended to rely upon public meetings and canvassing rather than media.

To add to this, the Thatcher government's popularity rose sharply on a wave of patriotic feeling following victory in the Falklands War in June 1982, allowing it to recover from its initial unpopularity over unemployment and economic difficulty.

In addition, the GLC, Glasgow, Liverpool, Sheffield, and smaller London councils like Lambeth, Camden, and Islington adopted policies that challenged the Thatcher Government's insistence on budgetary cuts and privatisation.

The Labour Birmingham City Council in the 1980s worked to diversify the business visitor economy, as characterised by the decision to build a new, purpose-built convention centre in a decaying, inner-city district around Broad Street.

Plans to privatise Royal Mail were abandoned as a result of pressure from Labour, the Communications Workers Union and voters in Conservative rural heartlands who sought to protect post office services.

Combined with a Conservative opposition that had yet to organise effectively under William Hague, as well as Blair's continuing popularity, Labour went on to win the 2001 election with a similar majority, dubbed the "quiet landslide" by the media.

[204] Despite its years in opposition, Labour has nevertheless continued to be active on a local level, introducing measures such as free breakfasts in schools, schemes to tackle fuel poverty, new apprenticeship opportunities, financial support for students in education, and the building of social housing units.