
Contents
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Hopes and Fears Hopes and Fears
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Toward the 1945 Election Toward the 1945 Election
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The General Election of 1945 The General Election of 1945
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Two New Faces in Parliament Two New Faces in Parliament
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The Labour Government: Hopes and Challenges The Labour Government: Hopes and Challenges
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Short of Dollars and Short of Coal Short of Dollars and Short of Coal
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The Three Economic Battles The Three Economic Battles
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The Labour Government and the Unions The Labour Government and the Unions
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4 Labour’s Moment: The Election of 1945 and After
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Published:January 2019
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Abstract
This chapter focuses on Britain after World War II. The British could take pride in their stubborn endurance over six long years of war, but the toll and the scars ran deep by 1945: over 950,000 wartime casualties, including 357,000 killed; massive bombing destruction of already scarce housing; pervasive shortages and bleak austerities; and an empty treasury. From day one, inexorable postwar economic and financial constraints enveloped the Labour government, apart from its self-inflicted wounds such as the winter coal crisis in 1946–47 and the convertibility fiasco. However, across its five-year term of office, Labour stood by its proclaimed egalitarian values. Labour honored its unprecedented commitment “to raise the living standards of the people as a whole,” and it linked that goal to the imperative of raising the economy's productive capacities. The chapter also looks at the general election of 1945.
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