ABSTRACT
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War there was much concern about the future of 'the British people', It led to the establishment of a Royal Commission on Population since it was believed, by analysis of demographic patterns, that there was a real threat of the 'fading-out of the British people'. The election of a Labour government in 1945 was widely and correctly seen at the time as a determined attempt to break with 'the past' in the shape of a 1930s identified primarily as a decade of unemployment, failure and deprivation. 'New Britain' should bear a strong resemblance to a 'new Jerusalem' - at least in England's green and pleasant land. This self-conscious commitment to 'building the new society' in Britain proved rather more complicated than Labour enthusiasts supposed likely. It remained a deep conviction, however, that 'new Britain' both could and should be created on the foundations laid in the five difficult postwar years.
