To What Extent Was the Period of Conservative Rule 1951-64 “Thirteen Years Wasted”?

‘The main reason for conservative dominance in the years 1951 to 1964 was labour disunity’ Assess the validity of this view. (June 2011)

Heath can be seen to be a successful leader due to the fact he won the 1970 election, much to Harold Wilson’s surprise. However, many would place the win not down to the

‘One nation’ is an idea that is based upon principles such as paternalism, and it is the name given to describe this particular faction of the conservative party. ‘One nation conservatives’ is the name given to the followers of the ideas presented by Benjamin Disrael, and the belief in changing Britain from ‘two nations’ i.e the rich and the poor, and instead creating one. Benjamin Disraeli adopted one nation conservatism for both ethical and electoral reasons. Before he became leader of the Conservative Party, Disraeli had announced that, as a result of the Reform Act of 1867 the party needed to pursue social reforms if it was to have

In 1928, a national health insurance scheme was proposed but not implemented because it would have required businesses to provide contributions to health insurance for their employees (Evolution of Government Involvement in Health Care, n.d). Another national health insurance scheme was proposed in 1938 but it was also rejected (Evolution of Government Involvement in Health Care, n.d; Hilless & Healy, 2001). The next proposal was the 1945 Pharmaceuticals Benefits Act. This Act was not implemented because the Australian Medical Association challenged it in the High Court of Australia and it was decided that parliament had “exceeded its constitutional power” (Hilless & Healy, 2001). In 1946, under the Hospital Benefits Act, the Commonwealth began to subsidise public hospitals under the condition that patients would not be charged (Evolution of Government Involvement in Health Care, n.d; Hilless & Healy, 2001). This act is similar to the current Medicare system.

Since 1979 the conservative party has undergone significant changes from the traditional conservative party which focused on ideas about human nature, order and pragmatism, first with new right conservatism under Thatcher then with the current conservative party. The current conservative party however, can be seen to still be committed to its traditional conservative principles such as Euro-scepticism and that they remain largely traditionalist. However there are many ways in which the conservative party has changed such as taxation, education and the welfare state.

This essay will examine how the development of the Welfare State and the NHS changed the lives of the people of Britain since its introduction in 1948. To enable me to do so, I will analyse and evaluate the key relevant aspects that happened during that period.

Later, findings from a series of reports including report from Royal commission on National Health Insurance in 1926; The Sankey Commission on Voluntary Hospitals in 1937; and reports from British Medical Association (BMA) in 1930 and 1938, all collectively indicated that inadequacy existed in the pattern of the services (Christopher, 2004; Webster, 2002). Evident were reports of conflicting care and duplication of work between the municipal and voluntary hospitals (Wheeler & Grice, 2000). Additionally, world war had a huge impact on the health services and the conditions in which hospitals, theatres, radiology and pathology department operated was very poor. Thus, no machinery existed that supported running of a coordinated healthcare system, hence a need for unified, simplified and cohesive system was felt (Smith, 2007). Furthermore, Royal Commission’s report suggested that funding for the health services might benefit from general taxation rather than its basis on insurance principle (Christopher, 2004). However, it was not until the Beveridge report in 1942, which provided a huge drive and momentum for a movement of change in the health services. And within subsequent years seen were the proposals for NHS drawn through the White Paper in 1944, then in 1946 the National Health Service Act and at last in 1948 the establishment of the NHS

This period of Labour rule is often marked down as a poor performance on behalf of the labour party, critically looked upon by many historians. There were many failings under the rule of this government however the circumstances they were placed in caused severe restraints in their options.

p. 252). A national disaster relief agency led on conservative values – that is, smaller government

The ideological and social factors concerning the creation of the NHS were part of a post war aspiration as World War II had created a need for needs and recognition of more social needs such as mental health and long term rehabilitation.

Another contributing factor at this election may have been performance in office, which in the above statement is not seen as important as personality and image. However, performance in office may have been extremely detrimental for the conservatives in 1997 because of their crisis in 1992. This focuses on the retrospective model, as people saw the Conservatives as incompetent in handling the economy because of Black Wednesday in September 1992. The Conservatives and especially Noramnt Lamont, Chancellor of the Exchequer, were to blame for the crisis that saw the pound forced out of the ERM. This didn’t help at the 1997 general election where they did extremely badly in a huge Labour win.

It saw high wages fought for by unions as being a factor in unemployment. They replaced grants with loans from the social fund, benefit eligibility was reduced and payments cut.Pensions decreased, council houses were sold and companies were privatised. Care in the community was introduced encouraging more care by family members (free). They pushed for the nuclear family, outcasting women and ostrecising single mothers.

This statement is asking whether all forms of conservatism’s values and actions in the past are because they wish to reflect the interests of those in society who are better off, sacrificing the interests of the less well off in doing so. The current debate is very unclear as opinion on this does, and always has varied greatly. Generally, left-wing labour supporters believe this statement is true whereas the rest of society do not agree. Conservatives have strenuously denied this claim over the years. This essay will argue that Conservatism does in fact merely reflect the interests of the privileged and prosperous, despite this claim being

The Labour government of 1974-1979 also won two elections, the 1974 February election and the 1974 October election, however both were won by a minority. The February election was won by 4 seats and the October election was won by 42 seats. The reason for the slim win is to do with inflation. The Labour governments of 1974-1979 were in office at a bad time because Britain had started to suffer from huge inflation because of the oil price rise in 1973, and so voters didn’t have a clear decision on which they were going to vote for. This shows that at the moment the 1964-1970 Labour Government was more successful by far because of their majority of 110 seats in the 1966 election.

Whether or not there truly was a ‘post war consensus’ in British politics from 1951 to 1964 is a highly debatable topic of which historians can often appear to be in two minds about; on one hand, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson infamously described the period as ‘Thirteen years wasted’, whereas historian Robert Blake (a supporter of the Conservatives’, regards it as a ‘Golden age of growth’. The likes of Kevin Jeffrey’s even argue that consensus had even started before the war. Overall, the central issue was the idea of a mixed economy.