1950 Unknown Remember? Don't give the Tories another chance

The Soldiers of Lead (1950)

society. To this end, Herbert Morrison the mastermind of the victorious 1945 election wanted to avoid specific policy commitments, but focus on how socialism had Five years after Labours landslide victory in been a positive influence on electors’ lives.22 1945 the public were sent back to the polls, against a backdrop that didn’t feel dissimilar to the one five It was these ideas of ‘positive action’ and years prior. Labour came out victorious with a larger ‘constructive progress’ that formed the crux share of the vote than they garnered in 1945,20 despite of the message that Labour projected in their this, they lost 78 seats and emerged with a 20‘General Election posters, ‘Remember? Don’t give the Tories slim five-seat majority, many Newspapers Results 1885-1979’ <http://www.election. another chance’ [№ 014] asks the reader to look and Political commentators noted that the demon.co.uk/geresults. html> [accessed 20 back and ‘remember’ the high levels of unemployment result was not ideal for the effective running June 2020]. under the Conservatives in the 1930s, and to not ‘give of government, and another election seemed almost a them another chance’ at repeating this, the poster certainty. illustrates the Jarrow Marchers of 1936, they utilised the imagery as an allegory for the Conservatives The election took place in a nation still convalescing opinion on the average worker. Looking back to from the war, with policies like rationing were still the past is also present in the ‘They remember and in place. However, by 1950 the Labour Government they’re voting Labour’, [№ 018] it depicts an elderly had enacted large amounts of the sweeping reforms couple, although not explicitly clear what they are it had promised in its 1945 manifesto. Between remembering, In the spirit of the campaign we imagine 1945 and 1950 the Labour Government passed the it’s a comment on pre-war unemployment; a key National Health Service Act, creating the NHS as feature in the manifesto. Labour leaned heavily into a free at point of access health care service, also the idea that voters, particularly those of the workingthe New Towns Act which created 12 new towns to classes would not forget the hardships they struggled alleviate the issue of overcrowding, and tied into the in the inter-war period and the progress that Labour parties pledge to build 200,000 new council homes. had made post-war, this method of communication is Alongside these initiatives was the large scale process summed up as a wider trend by Christopher Burgess, of Nationalisation; bringing the steel, coal, gas, iron and "After 1945, campaigning became quite negative, If railway industries into public ownership in an attempt you're in government, you can attack the opposition to create jobs, and stimulate the economy. These for what they're going to do or you hark back to a alongside many other social reforms were passed on an period people remember. If you're in opposition, you unprecedented level and in the run-up to this election can attack someone for their record."23 Labour Labour posed itself as ‘the party of positive 21‘1950 Labour exhibited this idea throughout their posters in action, of constructive progress, the true party Party Manifesto’ <http://www.labour- this election. of the nation’21 hyping up their credentials as party.org.uk/ manifestos/1950/1950a force that had produced positive change in labour-manifesto. shtml> [accessed 23 March 2020] 22 Steven. Fielding, Nick. Tiratsoo, and Peter. Thompson, ‘England Arise!’ : The Labour Party and Popular Politics in 1940s Britain (Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 176–78. 23‘General Election 2010: The Power of Persuasion’, Express. Co.Uk, 2010.