ABSTRACT
On 1 September 1939 Neville Chamberlain proposed to the Labour Party that they should join his Government. The executive of the Parliamentary Labour Party refused. They would not serve under a man who Attlee claimed treated them like dirt, nor in a Cabinet dominated by the 'guilty men' of Munich. When Churchill became Prime Minister there was a widespread feeling of defeatism throughout the country. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, was in favour of negotiating a peace settlement, and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Ironside, proclaimed the end of the British Empire. In the 1945 general election campaign there was much talk of the struggle between 'state socialism' and 'free enterprise' by politicians who were in fundamental agreement over the need for a mixed economy. The Government's White Paper on education was published in July 1943 and was seen by the opponents of the Beveridge Report as an admirable diversion.
