Smith, Greg dot com

I've written before about how, on May 10, 1940 Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain as German troops poured over the River Meuse into France, Belgium and the Low Countries. As the British troops stationed there retreated in the face of the Nazi blitzkrieg Churchill marched into the House of Commons and promised that under his leadership he had nothing to offer but "blood and toil, tears and sweat."

Almost five years later to the day, on May 8, 1945 Germany signed documents of unconditional surrender to the Allied Forces. On what became known as V-Day Winston, the bulldog of Britain, was cheered by crowds on Whitehall Street. "This is your victory," he told the crowd. The people shouted: "No, it is yours", and Churchill conducted them in the singing of Land of Hope and Glory.

But less than sixty days later, on July 4, 1945 Winston Churchill was booed and heckled by another crowd of 20,000 in East London (picture below the fold). Although many came to see the man who’d “delivered victory“, huge numbers had come to demand new housing and a near riot broke out...

Winston had brought them victory, but true to his word he had brought blood and toil, tears and sweat. And the British people were tired of it. London was full of rubble. Husbands, sons and fathers were gone and not coming back. There were shortages of everything and no one wanted to use a ration card again. People wanted jobs, health care, easier times. And Churchill was anything but a warm and fuzzy father figure promising to give them those things.

But the liberal wing of British politics in the form of the Labour Party promised that now that the war had been won they would deliver the peace:

In the 1945 campaign Churchill warned the British people that government-run health care, housing, trains, banks, mines and other industries all came with a steep price. His stump speech, which he delivered at that East End rally on July 4 cautioned them that what the government gives, the government controls:

"No Socialist government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent..." and "No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance."

Over the next two weeks citizens across Britain voted, and Labour won a landslide victory over the Churchill's Tories/Conservative Party, propelling Clement Attlee into the prime ministership.

The single greatest factor in Labour's dramatic win appeared to be the policy of social reform. In one opinion poll, 41% of respondents considered housing to be the single most important issue that faced the country, 15% stated the Labour policy of full employment, 7% mentioned social security, 6% nationalisation and just 5% international security, which was emphasised by the Conservatives. The Beveridge Report, published in 1942, proposed the creation of a Welfare State. It called for a dramatic turn in British social policy, with provision for nationalised health care, expanded state funded education, national insurance and a new housing policy... Clement Attlee's government proved to be one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century. It presided over a policy of selective nationalisation of major industries and utilities, including the Bank of England, coal mining, the steel industry, electricity, gas, telephones, and inland transport (including the railways, road haulage and canals). It developed the "cradle to grave" welfare state conceived by the Liberal economist William Beveridge. To this day, the party still considers the creation in 1948 of Britain's publicly funded National Health Service under health minister Aneurin Bevan its proudest achievement.

Churchill, virtually the morning after leading England through its darkest days and finest hours, had been tossed from office in favor of those who promised a comfortable peace. Two years later, reflecting upon his loss, he would share another of his brilliant insights:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

As we Walk Thru History we discover that there is nothing new under the sun...