Would Labour turn this country into a communist state?

I believe that at the start of 1945 it was obvious to all that the war was coming to an end. I also believe that to the armed forces personnel (many of who had been fighting for nearly seven years) did not want more than anything else to return to a country that could not provide the jobs, housing etc that they had paid such a high price for.

Atlee articulated that feeling far better than Churchill who was still very much sidetracked from the election by the growing problems of post war Europe. Therefore, I feel that there was a feeling that Churchill was not as concerned with the welfare of those who had lived out a war fought at home and abroad and therefore the Labour message of "Homes Fit for Hero's" came through.

In the above it was articulated more than anything else just what the vast majority of the population wanted which was a different Britain from the poor housing, health and unemployment that they knew at the start of the war. Hence the Labour landslide of 1945.

To those returning, Churchill was the leader required for the war years. Atlee was the leader required for the coming years or peace

I certainly think Atlee is an interesting politician and man. I am still ploughing my way through Citizen Clem but well worth it.

I seem to remember reading that the 1945 government was swept somewhat into more nationalisation than they intended. I can remember my father telling me that, although he felt it right to vote a Labour government in after the war he did feel they hadn't shown Churchill how they felt about what he had achieved. I don't think he was alone with that feeling.

I'm pleased to read your posts, Grandad - Attlee is one of my most admired politicians.
He was the right man for the times, as was Churchill in the previous years.

MazieD, great company the BRS both when nationalised and in the first few years after de-nationalisation. It was when they became Exel by name that things for the employee really started to go down hill.

Anniebach [So Attlee got it wrong by nationalising the railways, and how come Churchill wasn't a national hero in 1947 , sorry but I can't accept that as a reason for winning in 1950 but not in 1947] End Quote

Anniebatch with every respect to your above posting, but if you read my forgoing posting(s) I did not state that "Atlee got it wrong in by nationalising the railways". I stated that the Atlee goverment nationalisation of the Road Haulage Industry was a wrong step.

Also there was no General Election in 1947, they were in 1945 and 1950. The reasons i believe the Atlee Labour party won the 1945 general election I have also stated in previous posting. Therefore, if you refer to that you can take up argument with my points

I thought so! My DP worked for them for 20+ years. That's why we were in S. Yorks in the Miners' Strike.

MazieD
Your correct the Churchill goverment allowed once again Private Haulers to enter the industry.

So was the road haulage industry renationalised later, Grandad? Because BRS wasn't privatised until the 1980s.

Or did they just allow private hauliers back into the system?

So Attlee got it wrong by nationalising the railways, and how come Churchill wasn't a national hero in 1947 , sorry but I can't accept that as a reason for winning in 1950 but not in 1947

Why Atlee lost the 1950 Election had two reasons. In the first was the simple attraction of Winston Churchill as the great National Government leader through the war years he was held in huge respect and affection by the British population

However, the second reason was more complex. In the nationalisation of the railways the Atlee government also Nationalised the road haulage industry. In that all goods that needed to travel more than twenty five miles had to go by rail.

In the above, the volume of traffic on Britain's railways which was still recovering from the war was so great that they really could not cope. The foregoing had a dramatic effect on the quality of food arriving in the shops due to be delays in rail transportation. The Conservatives made (quite rightly) much of the food transport problems in the 1950 campaign and that very much aided their victory.

The Churchill Conservative government immediately de-nationalised the road haulage industry following their victory in 1950, but changed very little else, until Thatcher.

That's not from a Tory newspaper btw, that's from the Socialist Worker.

But the Socialist Worker folks have always been opposed to the Labour Party in that it wasn't Socialist enough for them. They're bound to put as bad a spin as possible on the period..

I note they omitted to mention unemployment rising to 3 million during the thatcher years

The 1974 goverment was not a "socialist" goverment many would argue. The hike in the oil price brought about by the oil crisis of 1974 and set inflation on the rise. The Labour Callaghan goverment attempted to control that by applying pressure on employers on wages councils not to concede large wage increases. Hence the winter of Discontent.

That same goverment built fewer council house but it was the selling off of Britain's huge stock of council houses which began under Thatcher that created the housing crisis we have today.

The socialist worker is doubtless sighting such matters as the above as being not one of a true socialist goverment in the image of Atlee. "Labour under title only", Corbyn may well be different.

Yes Conservative governments did follow the great reforming goverment of Atlee but they maintain many of the social policies of that goverment untill Thatcher.

The Communist party in Britain are insignificant these days, no doubt that they feel that siding with the present Labour party is the only realistic prospect of anything near to there view of a socialist goverment.

I am not the media.

and yes much good was done in 1945 government but we were voted out after only one term. We cannot compare 2018 to 1945 when the country had just come through the war.

Also you offer no thoughts on why the communist party has decided not to stand in any election since Corbyn became leader .

A centre left party won three consecutive elections, Attlee won one .

However, those very left wing polices set Britain on a path of full employment, good average wages and affordable and readily available good housing that maintained the United Kingdom for more than three decades.

I posted this extract earlier in the thread which may be worth repeating:

When Labour was elected in 1974 its manifesto promised, 'It is our intention to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families.' In fact the 1974-9 government imposed the greatest attacks on working class living standards since the hungry years of the 1930s

Housing-by 1978 fewer council houses were being built than in any year since the Second World War.
Health-25,000 hospital beds went in the first two years of the Labour government.
Education-teachers suffered large scale redundancies for the first time in living memory.
Prices-doubled between February 1974 and December 1978.
Jobs-1,000 a day went in Labour's first three years.
Unemployment was 500,000 in 1974. It reached 1.6 million in 1976.
Wages-a family of four on average earnings was worse off in 1979 than in 1974.
Behind those cold statistics lay the shattered lives of millions of working people.

That's not from a Tory newspaper btw, that's from the Socialist Worker.

The most left wing administration Britain has ever had was the Labour government of 1945 which had Clement Atlee as its prime minister. That government brought in the formation of the NHS, embarked on a huge council house building programme, Nationalised Britain's railways and Road Haulage industry, introduced the welfare state (no more half starved children dressed in rags in our streets) and introduced the nationalisation of the utility industries, along with much else.

The above measures prevented Britain from falling into another era of recession and mass unemployment similar to that which followed the first world war. The policies introduced under the heading of "Homes Fit For Hero's" and were targeted towards Britain's returning armed forces personnel with great success.

Those policies put forward by any party today would be viewed as extreme left wing by many in the media, with no doubt the words "Communist, Marxist" appearing in large headlines. However, those very left wing polices set Britain on a path of full employment, good average wages and affordable and readily available good housing that maintained the United Kingdom for more than three decades.

In the above it was the extreme right wing policies of the Margret Thatcher Conservative government that so damaged Britain in selling of those council houses, those utilities and ensured by way of her trade union legislation that resisting or reversing those policies would be impossible without major social disruption.

Therefore, it can be argued that it has been Conservative government policies that has brought forward the present housing crisis, low wage growth, the gig economy, gross inequality and lack of any social mobility.

Yes why indeed Annie!

True Terri. Why would the communist party do this if they didn't think Corbyn would carry out their goals

Sorry should have said May local elections, but nevertheless, in doing so, they are throwing their weight behind who they seem to consider their "main man"

Allegedly, for the first time since 1920, the Communist party will not be fielding any candidates to stand against the Labour party in a prospective general election. As Tom Bradby is prone to say at the end of the 10 o'clock news, "make of that what you will"

I was very active during the miners strike , it was loyalty and love of my community which drove me. Scargill knew the miners would stand together , Thatcher knew she had to break the miners after the strikes during the Heath government ,I blame Scargill more than thatcher I suppose , he kept his house too. We need unions we do not need union leaders who want to control a labour government . We have this again with McCluskey, a desk in Labour H,Q?

I think it's not so much whether the unions & rank and file would have the energy to carry it out as whether the government of the time would have the ultimate 'power tool', the army, under their control. History shows that successful coups are those which are supported by the army or, as in the case of the Russian Revolution, where the army was already engaged in fighting WW1 and too stretched and distant to be used to repress the uprising.

To revert to the Miners' Strike a salient feature was the use of the police in large numbers to 'control' the strikers. They were bussed in from all over the country not only because of the numbers needed but also because local police forces contained men from the local community who might be sympathetic to the miners' cause (indeed, could well be closely related to striking miners) and be reluctant to 'enforce the law' quite as strongly as strangers who had no connection with the local communities. Indeed, there were rumours at the time that the army were involved, disguised as policemen.

Even if a Labour government was in power they would be constrained by the amount of support the army would give them in enforcing their 'revolution'.

If a violent revolution is necessary to turn the UK into a communist state, do you think the Unions and the rank and file"working" class would be able to raise the energy to carry this out?
Perhaps the 1980s miner's strike was the nearest to this in recent times.

With any organisation, what they say officially about their aims and policies, may well not be the aims and policies a group of its memebers is working towards;

To this day I'll swear that the miners were shafted by Scargill. While I absolutely understand that they were fighting to preserve their industry (and defended them to many people who thought they were 'just after more money') the union leadership chose absolutely the wrong time to strike. All the government had to do was to sit tight and starve them out. Living in the middle of a mining community at the time I know how extraordinarily loyal the striking miners were to the concept of union solidarity and what an enormous financial struggle it was for them to keep going for so long.

But I can't help thinking that subsequent disillusion with unions may well have been created among their actual members as much by what turned out to be a fruitless struggle as by the incessant anti-union propaganda of the tory government.

annie: Some have forgotten the miners strike which badly affected South Wales was not a nationwide strike because there was not a national ballot, pits in parts of England continued working and Scargill didn't lose in house did he.

There was a national ballot, the UDM in Nottingham seceded from the NUM and kept working. There are people from the North who won't go to Nottingham to this day.
Scargill lost, but not for want of trying. Should have listened to his wife. and the WAPC