1951–56: Back in Government

Abstract

Social policy under Churchill’s 1951–5 government has about it a curiously uncomplicated flavour. Thanks particularly to R. A. Butler, the party had recovered from the disarray of 1945. Its spokesmen took every opportunity to remind people of the high proportion of social legislation over the previous century that had been enacted by Conservative governments and of the fact that the impetus for the bulk of the new legislation had come from the coalition government with its Conservative majority. The new intake in the House of Commons may have brought in some sharper questioning of the welfare state, but there was no disposition to reject it — and Macleod and Powell had anyway both been heavily involved in backroom work during the years in opposition.