ABSTRACT
Abolition of prescription charges was one of the first pledges honoured by the new Labour government. The abolition of prescription charges, then, was used again and again to remind the electorate that Labour could deliver. The abolition of prescription charges had long been under attack from the outside; the enemy redoubled its efforts. The resounding victory won by Labour at the general election of 1966 did nothing to stop sterling coming under the renewed pressure that culminated in the ‘July measures’ of that year. To many in the Labour Party, then, free prescriptions were a reminder of differences between itself and its opponents that were so essential that they could cover a multitude of sins of omission, commission and convergence. After 1966, however, the tensions between Labour’s hierarchs and egalitarians on welfare became increasingly marked, predictably over the possibly simplistic but nonetheless vital distinction between ‘universalism’ and ‘selectivity’.
