ABSTRACT
Labour’s victory had been won on a policy of moderate nationalisation, welfare and housing improvements, and support for the new United Nations and Britain’s allies. The rhetoric of Socialism had been used. Speaking for Labour’s executive committee, Emmanuel Shinwell, soon to be one of Attlee’s ministers, thrilled the Labour conference in December 1944:
If we are accused of being Socialists, if we are accused of interfering with free enterprise, our answer is, ‘Yes, we are Socialists, and we intend to abolish the specious and spurious free enterprise which impinges upon the liberty of the working class and makes profit for the few.’
