To What Extent Did the Labour Government of 1945 -1951 Improve the Lives of the British People?

To What Extent Did the Labour Government of 1945 -1951 Improve the Lives of the British People?

To what extent did the Labour government of 1945 -1951 improve the lives of the British people?

Winston Churchill, the leader of the Conservative Party, was in power when the Second World War ended and Nazi Germany was defeated. He was hailed a hero in the eyes of the euphoric nation. Confident in his popularity the Government called an election. Clement Attlee, the leader of the Labour party, came to power in a landslide victory, having used the slogan “No return to the 1930s” – a time of unemployment and recession. Britain had used up all its financial resources to survive the last years of the war. The voters though, wanted an end to this austerity and did not want to return to the “old days”. In 1942 the economist William Beveridge had a vision of the future which offered a system of social insurance, advocating the restructuring of the whole welfare system, which offered support for every person regardless of income. The publication of the report highlighted what he described as the five social evils which were Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. These five social evils would have to be dealt with in order to rid the country of poverty and improve the lives of the British people. With victory in the election of 1945, the Labour Party proceeded to start the reform process to improve the lives of the British people. However, it could also argued that it was the Conservative Government that set the wheels of change in motion for the reforms as it had instigated a number of the reforms during their tenure. They believed that Labour were too ambitious in implementing this system of social insurance. Yet, Labour realising that they did not have the finance to drive these reforms borrowed a substantial amount of money from the American Government to fund it. All this they did to help to improve the lives of the British.
The Labour Government in trying to introduce these reforms faced a huge task in establishing social provisions for the British...

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