Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
David Vincent, Poor Citizens: The State and the Poor in Twentieth Century Britain, (New York and London: Longman, 1991).
Many historians consider the Clement Attlee government of 1945-1951 to be one of th emore important governments in modern British history. Yet, while htere is no disputing the fact that this Government's great expansion of the Welfare State and its nationalization of several industries were indeed important changes, there is disagreement over whether these changes led to much meaningful change within society. Kenneth Morgan for the most part supports the Labour Government's achievements, arguing that while they might not have changed society as much as many Ministers would have liked, they nevertheless "acted as a platform for successive governments to effect much change." [1] David Vincent, on the other hand, argues that few long-term changes if any resulted from the Attlee Government's "reforms." Income distribution or fundamental power structures within society did not change all that much, and if they did, he maintains, they benefited the middle and upper classes much more than the working and lower classes. Corelli Barnett does not concern himself nearly as much with the concerns that Vincent and others bring up but rather focuses on the effect of the Attlee Government on British industrial and economic decline. Facing a stark set of choices between building a Welfare State or stimulating business and industry, Barnett argues that the Labour Government chose the former at the expense of the latter, with very deleterious results. Lastly, Jose Harris offers a much broader focus in her essay on the role of the State in society during the twentieth century. Instead of arguing that the Labour Government of 1945-1951 was a watershed Government, Harris points out that there was much greater conformity than dramatic social change.
Morgan begins by noting the effects the Second World War had on post-1945 reforms. Nothing less than a massive change in public mood and opinion occurred during the war. As a result of the war, "principles of equality, social cohesion [and] the breaking down of old time-worn class-barriers" were emphasized in place of the internecine conflicts of the Interwar period. [2] Britons of all classes rallied behind a "British variant of 'socialism in one country'," and as the only political movement clearly articulating this idea, Labour swept to power in the 1945 General Elections. [3] As a result, the Attlee Government was able to effect several important changes in British society to a degree unprecedented for a Labour Government before or since then. [4]
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