The affluent society: Britain 1951 - 1964

Key chronology

• 1951 Bevanite quarrel 

• 1951 Churchill become prime minister

• 1955 Eden becomes prime minister

• 1956 Suez crisis

• 1957 Eden resigns and MacMillan 

• 1963 Britain's EEC application rejected 

• 1963 MacMillan resigns 

Churchill as prime minister 

• In 1951 it was not immediately obvious there would be a Conservative dominance. 

• Labour did win more votes but the Conservatives won more seats and thus came into power. 

• 321 seats = Conservatives 

• 295 seats = Labour

• 48.8% of the votes to Labour 

• Labour were convinced Churchill was unfit be prime minister and the Conservatives would struggle with the intense economic difficulties Britain faced. Churchill gained his reputation for his excellent leadership during the Second World War however he was ineffective during his second term.

• Reasons for this were his ages, he was focused on ensuring no further conflict occurred in the world, rather than what happened in Britain.

• Churchill’s absence meant that the country was often left in the hands of Eden, Butler and MacMillan; the three did not get on well from 1951 to 1964.

• Churchill prior pitised post war consensus 

Eden as prime minister

• There were high hopes for Eden and the Conservatives after the 1955 election since they increased their majority from 17 to 60. 

• Rab Butler was chancellor and MacMillan was foreign secretary. 

• Eden’s experience was predominantly in foreign affairs and therefore immediately there were people in the Conservative Party voicing their dispute with his inexperience.

• Eden was a poor decision maker and was very weak (this was shown by his inability to move MacMillan from the Foreign Office to the Treasury).

• In 1956 Eden made the decision to take military action during the Suez crisis and this ended in a disaster. 

• The crisis soured his reputation so severely to the point where he never recovered from it and resigned early in 1957 due to ill health. 

MacMillan as prime minister

• MacMillan’s main rival was Rab Butler however he was very unpopular amongst the Conservatives.

• Butler’s reputation had been ruined from the tax cuts he introduced before the 1955 election which caused the economy to overheat. 

• Most of Eden’s cabinet prefered MacMillan and therefore he emerged as the leader. 

• With MacMillan as prime minister, the party’s unity was restored, economic prosperity continued to gain approval from the voters. 

• MacMillan had clear control of affairs and pushed the Conservative majority up to 100 seats. 

• The post-war economic boom was continuing and MacMillan’s one-nation conservatism was working very well.

Conservative domestic policy

• Atlee’s previous reforms were accepted by the Conservatives.

• The Conservatives also accepted the post-war consensus.

• This was the understanding between the two major parties about essentially what was necessary for the country after the war. This included: A mixed economy: involvement by the state as well as private enterprise, support for the NHS and the welfare state, ensuring full employment, preventing a repeat of the mass unemployment in 1930s and working with both trade unions and employers. 

• The post war consensus is sometimes called ‘Butskellism’

Conservative Housing policy

In 1951, the Conservative manifesto promised to build 300,000 houses a year. MacMillan, as housing minister, oversaw the success of this.

Conservative education policy

• The Conservatives continued the tripartite system in education which had developed after the Butler Act of 1944. Three kinds of schools emerged: the grammar school (for the intellectually gifted), the technical school (focuses on practical and vocational skills) and the secondary modern which would give a basic education to the majority. 

Conservative social reforms 

• The Clean Air Act aimed to prevent of 1956 aimed to prevent the smog of the early 1950s.

• The Housing and Factory Acts aimed to improve living and working conditions. 

• The Homicide Act of 1957 restricted when the dearth penalty would be imposed.

• In 1957 the Wolfenden Commission recommended that homosexual behaviour should no longer be a criminal act. 

Labour divisions in the 50s and 60s

• The Labour Party had only narrowly lost the 1951 election. The total Labour vote was 14 million despite the loss which was higher than any of their victories. 

• After Atlee stepped down in 1955, both Gaitskell (right side of Labour) and Bevan (left side of Labour) stood for Labour leadership. 

• Gaitskell defeated Bevan and many left wingers and members of trade unions were infuriated as they wanted the party to be more socialist. 

• Frank Cousins led the Transport and General Workers Union and opposed Gaitskell over Britain’s nuclear weapons.

• Before the 1959 election, Gaitskell put forward the idea of abolishing Clause VI of the Labour Party constitution as it committed to nationalisation.

• Gaitskell lost the vote at Scarborough in 1960 but won the next year. 

• Labour’s political position improved gradually after 1960 as it became more united. 

• Cultural shits in the country made the public more critical of the Conservative government by the beginning of the 1960s. 

• In 1963, the death of Hugh Gaitskell allowed Labour to appoint Wilson as party leader. 

Reasons for the fall of the Conservatives

• MacMillan was losing his touch. 

• The 1963 Profumo affair.

• In 1962 MacMillan radically reshuffled his cabinet for what was known as the night of long knives. 

• Spy scandals in the 1960s, George Blake being convicted as a Soviet double agent in 1961, John Vassall was blackmailed with his homosexuality to pass in information to the Soviets. 

• MacMillan’s serious illness that kept him in hospital for weeks in 1963; he resigned in October later that year. 

• Lord Home took on the role as party leader. 

Unionist

Supporters of the union of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to form the United Kingdom.

Nationalist

In the British context this usually means someone who supports independence for Scotland or Wales or is in favour of a united Ireland. 

Paramilitary

A non-State military force

Apprentice Boys

A loyalist organisation that marches annually to commemorate the closing of the gates to the city of Derry to Catholic forces in 1688 by 13 apprentice boys.

The beginning of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland

• Northern Ireland had been created in 1922, after the Irish War of Indepence of 1919 to 1921. Ireland was partitioned between 6 counties in the north of Ireland that would remain part of the UK and the other 26 counties which would be the Irish Free State. 

• The partition was extremely controversial at the time, leading to civil war with unionists supporting the union with Britain and nationalists supporting a united Ireland. 

• The majority of people in Ireland as a whole were Catholic but the majority of people in Northern Ireland were protestant. This meant that Northern Ireland was dominated by Protestant unionists and Catholics were not treated equally in Northern Ireland and discriminated against in employment and housing. 

• In 1964, the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland started to challenge this. Tensions rose as some unionists feared that the Irish Republican Army would start a new campaign. These so-called loyalists started to set up paramilitary organisations to defend the union. 

• Civil rights marches were held in 1968 to protest against discrimination. They were attacked by loyalists. Catholics complained that the RUC (The Northern Irish police force) failed to protect them. In 1969, the situation deteriorated further. The loyalist Apprentice Boys went ahead with their annual march in Derry and were attacked by nationalists in the Catholic area of Bogside. The RUC tried to storm the Bogside but were held back in two days of rioting. Television pictures broadcast across the world showed RUC officers beating Catholics. 

• Riots spread to other towns and cities. The Stormont government offered concessions on housing and electoral boundaries; this sparked rioting from loyalists. In August 1969, the Wilson government sent in British army troops in an attempt to keep the peace. 

The Troubles in Northern Ireland, including the Sunningdale Agreement

• As sectarian violence increased, the situation grew a whole lot worse and a number of paramilitary organisations sprung up. Such as the IRA (Republican), the INLA (Republican), the UDA (Ulster Defence Association (Loyalist) and the UVF (Loyalist). 

• On the 30th January 1972, The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had organised a march to protest against internment. Attempts to control the march resulted in British soldiers firing live ammunition. Twenty-six unarmed civilians were shot , with thirteen killed on the day. The day became known as Bloody Sunday. 

• Following Bloody Sunday, the British Embassy in Dublin was burned down. Support for the IRA grew and they were able to raise a lot of funds in the US. 1972 turned into the bloodiest year of the troubles: there were 1382 explosions, 10,628 shooting incidents and 480 people were killed. Heath suspended the Stormont Parliament in March 1972 and brought in direct rule from Westminster, appointing Willie Whitelaw as secretary of state. 

• Heath’s policy was not only to try to defeat the IRA, as the unionists and loyalists wanted, but to look for a permanent political solution that would ensure peace. This led to negotiations with the main Northern Irish political parties. 

• In 1973, Heath and Whitelaw negotiated the Sunningdale Agreement, a complex plan for a power-sharing government with the support of the SDLP and the Alliance and leadership of the ULP. 

What was agreed in the Sunningdale Agreement?

• A power sharing Executive of both nationalists and unionists - both sides would be guaranteed representation. 

• A new Northern Ireland Assembly elected under a system of proportional representation. 

• A Council of Ireland that would get some input from the Republic of Ireland.