What Attlee’s government had shown was that, though it regarded itself as Socialist, it was a very distinctive kind of Socialism and heavily influenced by Liberal thinking. Where a more Marxist Socialist would take a class-based approach to politics, for Attlee the central figure was the Citizen and Citizens inhabited every class. Hence his universalist approach to social services, available to anyone who needed them irrespective of status. At the same time, he would not forbid those with the means to buy themselves other services, if they chose, from the private sector.

His opposition to a harder-line brand of socialism had its corollary in his deep suspicion of Soviet behaviour internationally. His government invested whatever it needed to develop an independent British nuclear deterrent. It also became a founder member of NATO, and it also committed British forces to two major responses to Soviet aggressive moves: the Berlin airlift against the Soviet blockade on West Berlin, and the war in Korea, under the UN flag, against a Northern invasion of the South.

Unfortunately, these military commitments, added on top of the need to control the remaining Empire, only added to the financial burdens on the government. That had led to a regime of austerity at home. In turn, the generated a widespread atmosphere of dissatisfaction with the government.

As we’ll see, that wasn’t helpful in an election year.

Illustration: A plane in the Berlin Airlift flying above children watching it come into Tempelhof Airport. NATO photograph

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License