Thread by @labour_history

#OTD 1945. Election Campaign. Hundreds of thousands turn out to see a triumphalist Winston Churchill - as London comes to a standstill

The Daily Mirror contrasts this with the housing crisis facing millions: ‘Family – No Home – Father – No Vote’ and children sleeping in shelters

Churchill begins his five hour ‘40 mile homecoming tour’ of London

The press reports ‘the people could not hear him over the uncontrollable din but waited two hours in the rain to see him’

‘They held him up, mobbed him, slapped his back, tried to grip his hands and shouted ‘Good old Winnie’ and gave the V sign as if it were a victory celebration, not an electoral campaign’

He was also booed in Paddington, Marylebone and Walham Green.

The Manchester Guardian remarks that ‘it is an astonishing display of vitality, physical and mental, in a man of 70 – Tory gratitude to him ought to be unlimited and abiding whatever the result’.

Churchill continues his attack on Labour - that Harold Laski will be in charge of foreign policy and Ministers will not be able to withhold state secrets from the NEC.

The ‘Laski Bogy’ emerges as Churchill’s final warning against a Labour Government:

‘We have learned a great deal more than we knew before about the powers of the National Executive Committee’.

Attlee is judged to have ‘wisely lost no time in answering the Prime Minister and in demonstrating that the Parliamentary Labour Party is completely autonomous’

Even The Times admits that the Laski attacks have failed to connect with an electorate.

In contrast to the celebrations in London, the Daily Mirror reports on the children still sleeping in Anderson Shelters.

‘An ANDERSON where she, Billy and Frank, homeless through bombing, have lived since October last year…Her husband has no proxy or postal vote’

Mrs Orpin told the Mirror:

‘I’m going to vote the way I know my husband would want me to vote – he wants somebody in power who can really give us homes’

Attlee opts for a more muted affair in his Limehouse constituency. He claims there is a simple choice:

‘The (Tories) mistake the intelligence of the electors. People know very well what they want. They want just the same things now as they wanted at the end of the last war’

Attlee contrasted Churchill’s Presidential campaign to his strong team:

‘We have today a great team of men who have held high office, have taken responsibility and have shown they can govern. Give us the chance to govern. We have never had it yet’

Attlee compared Labour’s planning to the Normandy landings:

‘When we planned the great operation there were thousands of details. When the show came off it went according to plan. That is the lesson – if you want to get results you must work for it and leave nothing to chance’

‘We don’t believe that reorganization should be left to chance. It should be planned and we must have an object for which we are planning’.

In Watford, Herbert Morrison maintains that Labour can still win despite the newspapers calling it for Churchill:

‘I believe we of the Labour Party have got victory within our grasp provided we work for it with tenacity, calmness and supreme energy’

It comes as many papers put the Tories on course for a 100 seat majority

Morrison adds: ‘The real questions the electors must decide is how best to give the people a good and advancing living after the war and how best to help lead other nations from war to lasting prosperity’

In Wakefield, Greenwood accuses Churchill of the ‘Fuhrer Principle’ ‘a principle foreign and abhorrent to the British people’.

He argues that Churchill has been gate-crashing radio broadcasts, going over the allotted time and side-lining ministers.

‘He had endeavoured to make the election a personal matter, taking on his shoulders full individual responsibility for the fortunes of his party and rendering his followers ciphers with no contribution to make to the struggle’

In South Hetton, Manny Shinwell claims that Churchill is finished ‘It appears to me that Mr Churchill has lost his temper and his sense of proportion. He should be thoroughly ashamed’

In Earlsfield, South London, Ernie Bevin promises to repeal the Trade Disputes Act – against criticism that he didn’t do it during the War:

‘We would have broken the national unity if we had done it. The war was the urgent thing’

On the Conservative side, in Glasgow, Chancellor John Anderson argues in favour the nationalisation of water:

‘I would also support the nationalisation of the distribution of electricity if a good scheme could be produced’.

However he adds

‘for our great competitive industries that will have to hold their own against competition abroad – not on your life. It is on them that we have to rely to build up our exports. It is little short of madness to even talk of nationalisation’.