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PM Clement Attlee (Labour)
At the end of WWII, Britain had piled up foreign debt and was facing a critical economic situation, having lost its export markets and half of its merchant fleet. Labour won the first general elections after the end of the wartime coalition government by a large majority. Clement Attlee began to implement a programme of nationalisation and social insurance, creating what has since been called the welfare state. -
Nationalisation of Britain's Coal Industry
Part of the Labour government’s efforts to nationalise key industries. Other businesses that became public property: Bank of England (1945); transportation of cargo (1946); electric power companies (1947); iron and steel production (1948). -
Creation of the NHS
Financed by taxes, the National Health Service offered medical treatment that was free at the point of delivery. Thus, large parts of the population profited from state-of-the-art medicine for the first time, even though some problems – overcrowding of surgeries, lack of investments in new technology –became apparent soon. The creation of the NHS was part of the welfare-state reforms that offered protection “from cradle to grave”, i.e. against the dangers of ill health, unemployment and old age. -
PM Winston Churchill (Conservative)
Returning to power, the Conservatives stopped the programme of nationalisation. They did not, however, question the welfare reforms, now agreeing in principle that the state should play an active role in the economy and public services (“post-war consensus”). Aged 76, Winston Churchill made a comeback; his premiership was characterised by rising Cold War tensions. -
Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth succeeded her father after George VI’s unexpected death. Her role is largely is largely ceremonial, but she does exercise certain prerogatives within constitutional bounds: the monarch opens Parliament, dissolves it (to make way for general elections) and appoints the Prime Minister. Elizabeth II has made a point of her political neutrality. As head of state, she holds weekly meetings with the head of government, i.e. the PM. So far, 12 PMs have been in office during her reign. -
PM Anthony Eden (Conservative)
With Winston Churchill retiring due to old age, Anthony Eden, previously his Foreign Secretary, became the new Prime Minister after the victory of the Conservative Party at the 1955 elections. He remained in office for only a year and a half, having to step down about his handling of the Suez Crisis. -
Suez Crisis
In July 1956, Gamel Nasser, President of Egypt, announced his decision to nationalise the Suez Canal.
Britain, France and Israel settled upon a military operation that took place at the end of October, but
they had to withdraw their troops over international disapproval and pressure from the United Nations. -
PM Harold Macmillan (Conservative)
Macmillan succeeded Eden as Prime Minister. In 1959, he led the Conservative Party to their third consecutive victory at general elections, scoring with the slogan: “You’ve never had it so good.” Indeed, the late 1950s and early 1960s were a time of prosperity and affluence for large parts of society, but some critical voices warned against the complacency of the establishment: John Osborne’s play “Look Back in Anger” (1956), for example, or Michael Shanks’ study “The Stagnant Society” (1961). -
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Carrying on the work of earlier anti-war organisations, the CND was born out of the fear of nuclear conflict that gripped Europe in the 1950s. Its prime objective is the elimination of nuclear weapons in Britain (unilaterally, if necessary) and in the world. While Britain, unlike Germany, did not have a “68
movement”, extra-parliamentary movements on the political left did grow stronger in the 1960s. -
PM Alec Douglas-Home (Conservative)
With Macmillan having resigned over health issues, Douglas-Home succeeded him as Prime Minister, but held the office for only a year: in 1964, the general elections were won by the Labour Party. Originally the Earl of Home and thus a member of the House of Lords, Douglas-Home renounced his peerage and had himself elected into the House of Commons to serve more efficiently as Prime Minister. -
PM Harold Wilson (Labour)
After 13 years in the opposition, Labour returned to power in 1964. In the years of PM Harold Wilson, society became more open: censorship was abolished (1959: books, 1968: film, theatre); abortion was legalised; homosexuality was decriminalised (1967); the capital punishment was
effectively abolished (1965, 1969). However, despite relative prosperity, the first symptoms of the “British Disease” (1960s and 1970s) made themselves felt: low industrial productivity, labour disputes and inflation. -
Anti-Vietnam Demo
In London, Britain’s biggest protest march against the Vietnam war started in Trafalgar Square and moved on to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. Clashes between protesters and the police resulted in some 300 arrests. The demonstration was headed by Tariq Ali, who, as President of the Oxford Union debating society, had stood up to figures such as Henry Kissinger over US policies in Vietnam. -
"Rivers of Blood" Speech
In a highly controversial speech, Enoch Powell, Member of Parliament for the Conservatives and
former Minister of Health, warned against immigration to Britain from the Commonwealth nations,
alluding to the possibility of violent racial conflict: “Like the Roman [i.e. the poet Virgil], I seem to see
'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'.” The speech, which was delivered to the Conservative
Political Centre in Birmingham, was a reaction to new anti-discrimination legislation. -
PM Edward Heath (Conservative)
Heath’s most lasting – and, to some extent, controversial – achievement was the negotiation of Britain’s entry into the European Community (later European Union). His premiership also saw a peak in the so-called Troubles, the outbursts of politically motivated violence in Northern Ireland. -
Britain joins the European Economic Community
Britain had first applied to join the EEC in the early 1960s, but the French President Charles de Gaulle had vetoed British membership, disapproving of Britain’s close bonds to the Commonwealth and the United States. It was only after de Gaulle’s resignation that negotiations about British membership in the EEC could begin in the 1970s. After their successful completion, Britain became a member state
in 1973. -
PM Harold Wilson (Labour)
Wilson’s second term as Prime Minister coincided with a time of economic difficulties; the world was still suffering the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis. Wilson renegotiated the terms for Britain’s entry into the EEC; in a subsequent referendum – one of Labour’s key election pledges – a large majority of
the electorate voted for Britain to continue its EEC membership. Wilson resigned after two years in
office, claiming that he had always wanted to end his career at the age of 60. -
PM Steve Callaghan (Labour)
At the last general election of 1974, Labour had only won a tiny majority of three seats in the House of Commons. By the time Callaghan became PM, Labour had lost further seats at by-elections. When Callaghan faced a motion of no confidence, he struck a deal with the Liberal Party (“Lib-Lab Pact”, 1977-1978).The present government excluded, this has been the only official cooperation agreement (though not a coalition) between two parties since WWII. -
Winter of Discontent
Term for the social tensions in 1978/79. The government's plan to keep pay rises below 5% in order to control inflation led to widespread strikes of public sector employees. Services as diverse as waste collection, NHS hospitals and grave digging were affected. The government’s inability to contain the strikes until February 1979 is one of the main reasons for the Conservative election victory later that year. -
PM Margaret Thatcher (Conservative)
Thatcherism has been described as the prime example of “conviction politics”: the disregard for any existing consensus in favour of one’s own fundamental values and principles. In Thatcher’s case, that comprised a tough line against the Soviet Union (hence her nickname of the “Iron Lady”) and a policy of deregulation: many government-owned companies were privatised (and the money used to reduced taxes); the power of the trade unions was limited; welfare services and public spending were cut. -
PM John Major (Conservative)
Major succeeded Thatcher as PM after her resignation. Key events in his premiership: the first Gulf War (1990-91); the Maastricht Treaty (1992) and the creation of the European Union (1993). In 1993, the Conservatives launched Back to Basics, a campaign that was meant to emphasise Conservative values, but became the object of ridicule when it coincided with a series of scandals. -
Change of Clause IV
Clause IV was a part of the constitution of the Labour Party stating that “common ownership” of industries and services was “the best obtainable system of popular administration”. At Easter 1995, a Special Conference followed Tony Blair’s proposal to rephrase Clause IV. The break with past policies has been described as Labour’s “Clause IV Moment” and as marking the transition from Old to New Labour. -
PM Tony Blair (Labour)
Having made Labour “electable” by moving it from left-wing to centre politics, Tony Blair achieved a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. Even though the results in 2001 and 2005 were increasingly narrow, Blair became the Labour Party’s longest-serving PM. Blair introduced the process of devolution, the minimum wage, civil partnerships, the Human Rights Act (1998) and the Freedom of Information Act (2000). Anti-terrorism legislation, however, impaired civil liberties. -
Scottish Parliament opened
In 1707, England and Scotland formed the United Kingdom; the Scottish Parliament was abolished, its role taken by the UK Parliament that met in Westminster, London. Support for devolution – the transferal of powers from the central to a regional Parliament – existed since the 1960s, but the
campaign was not successful until 1997: the Labour government outlined a plan for devolution and a referendum in Scotland produced a clear majority. -
PM Gordon Brown (Labour)
With Brown described as Blair’s only serious contender for the offices of leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, rumours have never ceased of a secret agreement between Blair and Brown that would bind the former to step down in order to give Brown the opportunity to prove himself as PM. Blair did resign in 2007, but amid rising unemployment and global recession, Brown failed to win public sympathy. At the 2010 general election, Labour lost its majority after 13 years in power. -
PM David Cameron (Conservative)
The general election in 2010 resulted in a “hung parliament”, i.e. a situation where no party has an absolute majority of seats – a fairly unusual occurrence due to the “first-past-the-post” voting system that puts smaller and particularly middle-sized parties at a disadvantage. Subsequently, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government, the first one in Britain since WWII. So far, their prime objective has been to reduce the overall deficit in the UK budget.
