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The Soldiers of Lead (1950) Five years after Labours landslide victory in 1945 the public were sent back to the polls, against a backdrop that didn’t feel dissimilar to the one five years prior. Labour came out victorious with a larger share of the vote than they garnered in 1945,20 despite this, they lost 78 seats and emerged with a 20 ‘General Election Results 1885-1979’ slim five-seat majority, many Newspapers <http://www.election. demon.co.uk/geresults. and Political commentators noted that the html> [accessed 20 June 2020]. result was not ideal for the effective running of government, and another election seemed almost a certainty. The election took place in a nation still convalescing from the war, with policies like rationing were still in place. However, by 1950 the Labour Government had enacted large amounts of the sweeping reforms it had promised in its 1945 manifesto. Between 1945 and 1950 the Labour Government passed the National Health Service Act, creating the NHS as a free at point of access health care service, also the New Towns Act which created 12 new towns to alleviate the issue of overcrowding, and tied into the parties pledge to build 200,000 new council homes. Alongside these initiatives was the large scale process of Nationalisation; bringing the steel, coal, gas, iron and railway industries into public ownership in an attempt to create jobs, and stimulate the economy. These alongside many other social reforms were passed on an unprecedented level and in the run-up to this election Labour posed itself as ‘the party of positive 21 ‘1950 Labour Party Manifesto’ action, of constructive progress, the true party <http://www.labourparty.org.uk/ of the nation’21 hyping up their credentials as manifestos/1950/1950labour-manifesto. a force that had produced positive change in shtml> [accessed 23 March 2020]
Democracy in Print
23
