Yes it was. But on that:
1. It required us to live through a war first. That's what brought about socialism: everyone depending on everyone else.
2. That radical Labour government build a nuclear bomb and helped set up NATO and the Western alliance. How do you feel about that?
1. It required us to live through a war first. That's what brought about socialism: everyone depending on everyone else.
2. That radical Labour government build a nuclear bomb and helped set up NATO and the Western alliance. How do you feel about that?
3. Its achievements were only possible because of a massive loan provided by Washington. How do you feel about that?
4. Its first three years especially involved HUGE austerity. It worked because people were so happy to be back in peacetime. But now...?
4. Its first three years especially involved HUGE austerity. It worked because people were so happy to be back in peacetime. But now...?
5. Marshall Aid, the single most enlightened, far-sighted piece of foreign policy ever implemented by any country, enabled prosperity to be rebuilt across Western Europe. Where's the equivalent now? Who's going to provide it?
6. And that prosperity continued until a rather different US administration torpedoed it as Bretton Woods collapsed, monetarism came in, and even the Democrat and Labour governments of the late 1970s started moving in a very different direction as a result.
The postwar Labour government was, by far, the UK's greatest government ever. Its achievements were colossal; it had massive personalities and great people in politics to transform people's lives.
But it also benefited from circumstances which aren't there now.
But it also benefited from circumstances which aren't there now.
Many of the problems it remedied - housing, healthcare, the desperate need for a safety net - are certainly with us now. But the circumstances which enabled it to make such a difference aren't. Above all, because corporations, not governments, hold so much power nowadays.
And also because globalisation can't magically be reversed; more and more countries want a share of a steadily diminishing cake; Europe's population is ageing; and as yet, there has been no true collective action against corporate tax avoidance.
Then factor both outsourcing and climate catastrophe into the mix too, and you realise: it's difficult. Very difficult. Huge problems to combat; old solutions which can't work. So we need very new ones.
In my opinion, those new ones include Modern Monetary Theory. And I'd like to see Labour leadership candidates engage with it and spread awareness about it.
Incidentally, one other thing. The postwar Labour government was still in office when Britain... joined the Korean War. Isn't it curious how this bit just gets left out when seeking to completely romanticise it?
