ABSTRACT
The problems in diplomacy, defence and finance imposed on the Labour Government by the Korean War were difficult enough in themselves; they were aggravated by the political situation created at Westminster by the election of February 1950, which reduced its majority in the Commons to a bare half-dozen. A remarkable feature of the election campaign, in view of the exceptionally high turnout, was its extreme sobriety. Churchill, with obvious nostalgia for the rumbustious past, said it was 'demure'; but wiser counsels prevailed in the Conservative Party in 1950 than in 1945 and this time he made no references to the Gestapo. In 1950, however, Labour was still making the running, and the Conservative revival then was analagous to its revival after 1832. Yet if the size of the programme and the methods by which it was carried out were open to criticism, the need for rearmament at this particular juncture is less debatable.
