What If Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party win the 1945 UK Elections

[Mike67]

What if Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party won the 1945 UK General Election? I don't think the socialized medical system which Britain has now would exist or exist in it's current form. I also think all the rationing of food in Britain would have been ended in 1945 or 1946, I think Winston Churchill and the Conservatives would have won the 1950  General Election as well over Clement Attlee and the Labour Party.

[Phony Moderate]

A more interesting question would be: how the hell does this happen? Despite the fact that a lot of out-of-touch media types found it shocking, a Labour victory was probably more certain in 1945 than it was in 1997. Churchill was as popular as he could have been, ran as good a campaign as he could have done and still lost in a landslide because people ultimately wanted a better life. Only a major scandal in the Labour Party could, possibly, have lost it.

[Intell]

Labour would've won 10+ years after 1950. Also, how would this fycking scenario happen, it's literally has very little possibility, the electorate were probably most supportive of the left in 1945, than any other time in British history. If Churchill won in 45', Atlee would've certainly won 50' and (in a landslide) as well some elections after that, for about 10 years, before the electorate is tired of labour.

[IceAgeComing]

It was incredibly unlikely to happen - the Tories were hurting in 1939; people remembered not only the National Government but also how bad Tory and Tory-dominated governments had treated war veterans after the First World War and vowed for it never to happen again.  Some groups (Gallop I think) actually were doing opinion polling during the last few years of the war and Labour led in almost all of them; its just that the papers and important people refused to believe them since they thought that the British people wouldn't have voted against Churchill totally ignoring the fact that Labour's big figures were all important parts of the war government and were also generally well liked.  Like as someone else said; Major had more of a chance in 1997 than Churchill did in 1945.

There'd have been some system of social security set up since the Tories agreed with Beveridge; perhaps more along the lines of the German system rather than the NHS though.  Churchill was an awful peace time Prime Minister and I think would have gone before the end of the parliament in favour of Eden; I also think that Labour would have won in 1950 or whenever the next election was going to be.  They'd then benefit most from the post-war economic boom assuming that it happened in the same way (arguably Labour's policies are what set that up for people: in that people didn't have to worry about losing their job or the affects of crippling poverty in 1955 than they had to in earlier years because of the Labour reforms; plus there was always going to be a post-war economic boom, its just that the Tories were in power at the time so could take the benefit from it.  Food rationing wouldn't have ended significantly earlier since there simply wasn't capacity to expand food production; and rather than Europe exporting food to Britain for a short period they needed to import food from the UK since, y'know, the fact that they'd just gone through the most destructive war in history.

[Kingpoleon]

It depends. An arrow Conservative government, or one propped up by: Liberals, the Liberal Nationals, and Independent Conservatices and Independent Liberals(a total of 27 seats)?

[IceAgeComing]

The National Liberals basically were Tories by 1945 anyway; you really should add all of the "National" parties to the Conservative total since they were standing explicitly in support of Churchill.  I think they realised that the Conservative brand wasn't really popular in 1945 since they didn't really use it that much in campaigning; they heavily used Churchill in their campaign literature (naturally; he was popular after all) but talked heavily about re-electing "The National Government" even though by this point it was basically the Conservatives, the National Liberals (who were basically Tories by this point and definitely were by 1950) and a few Independents.

Was a hung parliament the result of the election I'm pretty sure that Churchill would have hung around until VJ day at least; Attlee wasn't entirely convinced of the need of the election and would have waited until the end of the war was it his choice.  After the war I'm less sure; I'm pretty sure that you'd have had a rather consensual parliament for the first few years anyway in order to get basic reconstruction started and an election a few years down the line that Labour would have been in a good position for.  Attlee wasn't guaranteed to lead Labour though mind - he was originally picked as a temporary leader until someone better came along and there were people (I think Herbert Morrison was one but I'm not an expert on Labour) who were planning a leadership challenge after the 1945 election; only the landslide win kind of prevented them from doing that.

[IceAgeComing]

Only you were never going to build the NHS in the 1930s; economically those were really the worst period in the 20th century and it was hard enough getting the thing through after a World War which brought the country together (and which made Labour seem like a good choice for Middle Class people due to their involvement in the war time coalition) - I mean any scenario like that I imagine has Baldwin as Prime Minister in 1929 and then the depression starts; with Labour winning at the next election. I can't see there being a situation where Labour somehow manage to lose an election before 1939 in that sort of situation since the Tories would have the stink of the depression all over them.  Besides you'd also have the British people voting out a government mere months before the war started which people expected was probably coming (assuming that that went as you'd expect: who knows whether a Labour government regardless of the Prime Minister ended up going down the same route as Chamberlain did; war might have started a year earlier over the Sudetenland for all we know.  I also think that in this world the Tories would have found a 1945 General Election harder than Labour even if Labour had been in power pre-war - people did remember how the Tory-dominated government right after the Great War messed around with veterans from that war and may well have preferred Labour.  Besides it creates a very different Britain; one which the OP obviously didn't forsee when he asked his question.

[IceAgeComing]

I don't think the leader really matters a whole lot: the Tory leader was Winston ruddy Churchill: I don't know whether its possible to have a more popular leader!  Its not like Attlee was some charismatic leader or anything (indeed he really wasn't highly rated on that ever): he really shined behind the scenes in the running of government which was a good thing for the country.  I mean 1945 was probably the best time to try and seek power as a uncharismatic politician: since that would definately make you really un-Hitler like.  The vote for Labour in 1945 was really an anti-Tory vote; with Labours involvement in the war government (although I don't know how much this was publicly known Attlee was in charge of the government committee primarily concerned with domestic matters during the war: and Labour ministers were in many prominent positions anyway.  All three parties in the election went in supporting social reform based on the Beveridge Report and I think that voters remembered the way that the Lloyd-George and Baldwin governments had promised similar things in the past and never delivered so went with Labour, who very much did deliver.  You can credit a huge amount of the 1950s boom to the 1945-50 Labour government IMO for lots of reasons: people didn't need to worry so much about getting ill or losing their job since there was a safety net there that both major parties supported the funding of.

Perhaps had Labour not entered government in 1940 they'd have struggled to win the election but even then I think that they may well have pulled it off, although not in a landslide.