ABSTRACT
In 1945, in Terence Morris's telling phrase, Britain was ‘a society both exhausted and exhilarated’. The overwhelming priority was post-war social and economic reconstruction, and the three main parties staked distinctive claims as how best to achieve those ends. Labour seized the opportunity offered by hard-won post-war solidarity to press for the nationalisation of key industries – the major utilities, the railways and coal mining – and the establishment of the ‘welfare state’, based on the Beveridge Report of 1942,2 which had proved so unexpected a best-seller in the midst of the war. The 1947 Bill was largely modelled on the provisions contained in its pre-war predecessor, something that had received broad cross-party support but had fallen because of the war. The mid to late-1950s were relatively prosperous but by no means overly tranquil times.
