ABSTRACT
What conclusions may be reached about Attlee’s governments? First, what verdict did contemporaries give? The electorate had opportunities to judge Labour’s administration in the general elections of 1950 and 1951. In the first Labour won a small overall majority. In the second it gained slightly more votes than the Conservatives but fewer seats and so left office. These results were certainly not the wholehearted endorsement which Labour had wished to see. On the other hand, we may be surprised that its vote held up so well, given that the period after 1945 saw not only popular reforms but also an unpopular intensification (to Crippsian levels) of the austerity which had first begun in wartime. In the adverse economic situation after the war, when it was necessary to borrow massive amounts of money merely to stave off bankruptcy, any government was likely to become unpopular with electors demanding higher standards of living as compensation for the privations of war.
