What Were The Acheivments Of The Labour Government 1940-1945
What Were the Achievements of the Labour Government Between 1945-51?
The Labour government from 1945-51 was probably the most successful Labour government in history in terms of policies and had many great achievements with undoubtedly the most famous being the introduction of the welfare state on a similar scale to what we know today. Winston Churchill, who had led country to victory against Germany in World War 2, believed, perhaps arrogantly, that his popularity as a war time leader would continue into the post war period. However, Britain, weary from war and thirsty for social change voted in Labour with the highest percentage of votes ever received by a political party in this country.
One of Labours achievements was the nationalisation of some of the major businesses including the Bank of England, rail, coal, gas, oil and steel. The nationalisation of the coal mines was seen by some as more of a humanitarian gesture than an economic one due to the extremely poor working conditions of colliers by the profit driven bosses. As Derek Brown wrote in the Guardian, “Pit owners still employed a million men, many of them in dire and dangerous conditions. The new national coal board was seen as much as a humanitarian institution as an economic one.” Nationalisation, despite it being ideologically driven, was also desperately needed to ease the financial strain on Britain that had come about as a result of the war.
The most famous success of Labour in this period was the introduction of the NHS. This wasn’t an easy task for the government to achieve, facing strong opposition from the medical community and threatened strike action from consultants and took two years to bring about although they were eventually successful. This was Labour implementing the ‘Cradle to Grave’ promise it had made and that had been spelled out only years earlier in the Beveridge Report in 1942.
In line with Labour’s health reforms, they also introduced other welfare reforms...
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