ABSTRACT
By 1931 unemployment had risen to 3,250,000 and in 1929 a Labour Government had been elected and beaten by the crisis. In October 1951 the Labour Government stood for election once again, and this time, although the Labour vote increased by nearly a quarter of a million votes, the Tories had twenty-six seats more than Labour. In January 1950 the tuc called another meeting of trade union Executives, spurred on by the recession in the USA in late 1949, and the devaluation of the pound by the Labour Government. In their election manifesto Let Us Face the Future Labour had set out their post-war plan for rebuilding Britain. The strains were very evident in February 1950 when the Labour Government was re-elected with a small majority of six, and by midsummer the revolt of the unions was in full spate.
