Churchill won the war but lost the peace - was that inevitable?

Plus ca change. The popular history of the Second World War - as pushed by newspapers and the media in general - is usually the story of Churchill. He is the Second World War in the popular imagination.
The fact that he was a much more divisive figure back then is often written out of the story, as is the fact that he was leading a coalition government which included many of those who would be part of the radical Labour government of 1945; a government that would essentially create the world we have been living in for the last 80 years; the NHS, the welfare state, nationalised industry (now largely gone, of course) and the postwar consensus that has been fraying since the Thatcher era and is now in the age of Trump perhaps about to disappear.
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The 1945 election is the subject of historian David Runciman's new 20-part Radio 4 series Postwar which has been stripped across the week from Monday to Friday and continues over the coming weeks (though as I write this many of the episodes are already available on BBC Sounds).
These short, sharp historical nuggets paint a more detailed picture than the broad sweep, romanticised history that we get in VE anniversary broadcasts. And it explains why the newspapers got it so wrong.
In 1945, Churchill may have been respected and admired, but the British people didn't want him any more. They wanted change. Labour embodied that change. And so ushered in the most radical government of the 20th century (whatever Thatcher fanboys might tell you).
'Why did the man who won the war, the hero of the hour and a hero for the ages, find himself so decisively rejected by the electorate?' Runciman asked in the first episode on Monday. His argument was that Britain had already changed because of the war. It was being run by a coalition government which had taken control of employment, prices, health, education, food. In other words, it was not very Tory, despite the man leading it.
'The new world was already here,' Runciman pointed out. 'It had been created during the war, the question was … who could be trusted with it.'
Not Churchill. His reputation in 1945 was less black and white than it is now. He was seen as a man of war, not of peace. And a gambler who was willing to take risks. Many still remembered his gamble at Gallipoli in the First World War that had led to the death of thousands of British soldiers.
Perversely, his opponent, Clement Atlee was seen as more conservative and therefore more reliable. (Atlee had fought at Gallipoli and actually approved of Churchill's gamble.)
The country was still at war when the election was held. The previous election was in 1935. That meant that in 1945 no one under the age of 30 had voted in a British election (the voting age was still 21). But many of them had fired a gun. The Labour manifesto of 1945 was that rare thing in politics, a genuine bestseller. Voters were hungry for postwar Britain to begin.
Kenny Logan (Image: Royal & Awesome)
The problems were hardly over, of course. The dismantling of empire and the construction of a postwar peace both loomed large. And the new Britain that emerged was very far from perfect. But it aspired to make a better world for its citizens. However flawed the result, there's a heroism in that. But that's a story we rarely tell ourselves. Postwar deserves credit for doing so.
Over on Radio 2 Kenny Logan - of Scottish rugby and Strictly Come Dancing fame - was guest on Vernon Kay's Tracks of My Years slot this week. In between his record choices he spoke about his dyslexia, his prostate cancer diagnosis, farming and Strictly (natch). But the most moving part of the conversation came at the end of the week when he talked about the late, great Doddie Weir, his team mate who battled motor neurone disease in his later years.
You could hear the catch in Logan's voice as he spoke about Weir. But the joy too as he recalled a day out with Weir bouncing over a hayfield in the car singing along to Amy MacDonald's This is the Life.
In the end we are the memories we leave behind.
Listen Out For: Private Passions, Radio 3, Sunday, June 15, noon
Singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega is Michael Berkeley's guest on this Sunday's edition of Private Passions. Given that The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon was also a recent guest I can hear a few Radio 3 refuseniks seeing this as another sign of the station dumbing down. But listening to Vega is always worth your time and her musical choices do include Debussy, Bartok and Philip Glass.

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