Office and Power under Attlee and Bevin (1940–50)

Abstract

The period of the 1940’s includes both the full five years of the war-time Coalition and the only slightly shorter length of the 1945 Parliament, which provided for the first time a Labour Government with a Commons majority. Like the earlier periods which we have considered, this one has a certain unity about it, in spite of the great changes effected by the end of the war and by the general election. So far as the Labour Party was concerned, its parliamentary leaders were in office throughout, and gained power within the movement as a result. The extra-parliamentary party and the trade-union movement were consequently under constant restraint, sometimes critical of government policy but always anxious to avoid the embarrassment that would follow if they carried their protests beyond the limits of friendly admonishment.