(Clement Attlee, Prime Minister 1945-51)
Following the war and the Labour Party’s landslide victory in 1945 over ten powerful industries were nationalised in Britain. Clement Attlee’s Party was seen as the country’s best hope for a revival from the war, ending war austerity and an avoidance of the depression of the interwar years. This meant a change of leadership. In this essay I will argue that so many industries were nationalised in Britain in the years immediately following WWII for three main reasons; the financial legacy of the war in the form of an ominous British balance of payments deficit, the war illuminating industries which full free-market capitalism didn’t work for and which central planning did, and the ideology of the Labour Party which saw government intervention as the only way to save these industries. These three factors, whilst not exhaustive, explain the reasoning behind public ownership in the period between 1945 and 1951.
