1950 Unknown For Radical reform

Send Attlee! (1955)

Britain prepare to go to the poll, the Hydrogen Bomb 42 ‘British looms over all mankind’42 Disarmament was Labour Party Election Manifesto, central and would have been a key policy issue 1955 marked 10 years since the end of World 1955 [Archive]’, 2017 <https:// for the leftist Bevanites, this influence by the War Two and the fourth election in that time frame. web.archive.org/ web/20170509104421/ left fed directly into the narrative that the The Conservatives went into the election under a new http://www. politicsresources. Conservatives wanted to paint of a Labour leader in Anthony Eden who had taken over from net/area/uk/man/lab55. htm> [accessed 28 June administration being hijacked by a Leftist or Winston Churchill a few months prior. With Labour 2020]. more significantly to the period; Communist heading into its 5 election under Clement Attlee, and constituent of the party.43 What Labour was the 20th year of his leadership. It marked a beginning more likely trying to achieve by focusing on of the end of the old world order of UK politics and the this policy was the experience that Attlee had grandees who had guided Britain through the war. The garnered in 20 years of leadership of the party, election was occurring in an age of relative tranquillity, in a similar way to the Conservatives and their use of the UK had largely recovered from the war and there Churchill 10 years prior. was little change in the nation. The election was largely uneventful, leading to one journalist to describe it as This focus on Attlee is fascinating, and emanates ‘the lull before the lull’40 This lack of dynamism 40 Glen. Segell, within the campaign material, reminiscent of an almost and controversy suited the Conservatives and Electronic Democracy and the 1997 UK presidential campaign, ‘Vote Attlee’ [№ 036] features they were easily returned, whereas they had General Elections (London: G. Segell, a photo of Attlee, himself someone who usually shied just got over the line in 1951, they consolidated 1997), p. 76. away from the limelight, he is pictured sat calmly their position by gaining 23 seats, and finally winning a holding a pipe amongst a bold use of typography – plurality of the popular vote too.41 For Labour 41 ‘General Election ‘The Rt. Hon’, emblazons the poster showing his titles, the election came at a time of infighting Results 1885-1979’ <http://www.election. and hints at his experience, flanked by ‘Vote Attlee’ in between two factions of the party, The ‘Right’- demon.co.uk/geresults. html> [accessed 20 a heavy sans serif typeface, no mention made of his wing Gaitskelites and the Left-wing Bevenites, June 2020]. party allegiance, but focusing on the man, in the same whereas the Conservatives had made an effort to way as an American style presidential poster; Labour change their leadership and their ideas, adapting with was asking the public to put their trust in one man. public opinion, Labour felt stuck in the past; muddled, As similarly noted by Burgess, this display of confused and largely irrelevant – the radical socialist Attlee was meant to present the image of a ideas that had inspired the nation 10 years prior ‘genial, trustworthy statesman.’44 It’s a bold weren’t landing in the same way. statement to put your leader front and centre, especially one who was never about the pomp Labours infighting and confusion was evident in and bravado; ‘a sheep in sheep’s clothing’45 the manifesto it produced, ‘Forward with Labour’; as Churchill had unflatteringly referred to him the main cornerstone of their campaign was the years before, over your policy statements. worsening tensions during the Cold War, ‘As we in But a further takeaway from the aesthetic of

43 Glen. Segell, Electronic Democracy and the 1997 UK General Elections (London: G. Segell, 1997)

44 Christopher Burgess, ‘Picturing Politics’, Picturing Politics <https:// picturingpolitics. wordpress.com/tag/ posters/> [accessed 20 June 2020]. 45 John Bew, ‘A Sheep in Sheep’s Clothing | Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective’ <http:// origins.osu.edu/ review/sheep-sheep-sclothing> [accessed 4 June 2020].