209. Aftermath of defeat

The Wilson government got off to a pretty sticky start, with the new Prime Minister learning, more or less as he arrived at Downing Street in October 1964, that the trade deficit for the year was likely to be twice as bad as he’d expected. One option to deal with the problem was devaluation, but that Wilson ruled out: he remembered how it had been when the Attlee government had devalued, and he didn’t want to face that loss of national prestige or the resentment devaluation had produced, all over again. The problem was that sticking with the pound at an artificially high value meant costs for government which killed many other ambitions, in particular introducing an element of planning and using it to generate growth.Still, the US was pleased Britain hadn’t devalued. It was, however, less pleased that Britain wasn’t sending troops to join its war in Vietnam, but that was a red line for Wilson. He didn’t like wars and he wasn’t inclined to send young British people into harm’s way for a war whose moral grounds many were now questioning and which it wasn’t obvious the US could even win.And Wilson also had to face another grisly chapter in the collapse of empire, when Southern Rhodesia, renamed Rhodesia and under a government headed by the hardline Ian Smith, went for a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). Again, Wilson however much he disliked seeing Rhodesia hanging on to white rule ignoring its black majority, wasn’t prepared to go to war over the issue. Instead, he tried to use sanctions to bring Smith to his knees, a well-intentioned tactic which simply didn’t work.Illustration: The funeral cortège of Winston Churchill winding its way through London. Public Domain.Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

1 Juni 14min

Here we’re focusing on the changes that took place in Britain after Supermac (Harold Macmillan) stood down as Prime Minister.A lot of how that went depended on the Opposition formed by the Labour Party. Initially it was led by Hugh Gaitskell from the right of the party, with Aneurin Bevan giving him a bad time from the left, while a serious threat was growing from Harold Wilson, formerly of the left which he’d deserted, now of the right which wasn’t sure it could trust him. An object of suspicion across most of the parliamentary party, Wilson was nonetheless appreciated for his ability and for his excellent rapport with voters.Then two key figures died. Bevan, the man seen by so many, for so long, as the leader in waiting, died in 1960. Then, in 1962, it was the turn of Gaitskell himself. All of a sudden, the way was clear for Wilson to forge ahead. Though not fully trusted by either wing of the party, both saw him as something of a least bad option – the left felt he at least had roots amongst them, the right that he'd at least worked with Gaitskell. Wilson secured the leadership with exactly as many MPs voting against him and voted for him, winning only because neither of the other two candidates could take more votes than he did.Wilson showed his skill in the last months of Macmillan’s government, giving him a bad time over such matters as the Profumo scandal. Over that row, Wilson played his cards with great intelligence, enhancing his stature while Macmillan lost his credibility and eventually stood down. He was succeeded by Alec Douglas Home (pronounced Hume), cheating RAB Butler of the prize yet again.As a result, both main parties went into the 1964 general election under new leaders. Home gave Wilson a heck of a run for him money, but in the end Labour won though by a painfully small majority in the Commons. So small that Wilson would be under constant threat of being brought down if a small number of his MPs turned against him.It was clear there would have to be another election pretty soon.Illustration: Harold Wilson by Walter Bird, 25 May 1962National Portrait Gallery x45598, and Alec Douglas Home, unknown photographer, circa 1955, National Portrait Gallery x136159Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

25 Maj 14min

Last time we looked at the continuing disintegration of the British Empire. In this episode we look at two other key aspects of Macmillan’s foreign policy, Britain’s relations with the US and with potential European partners.Towards the US, what the experience confirmed is Britain’s declining influence and its increasing dependence on, and even subordination to, American policies. Towards Europe, Britain became directly hostile towards the European Economic Community (EEC), trying to build a rival to it in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). As it became increasingly clear that this was never going to really fly, and as the British economy weakened, Macmillan found himself having to swallow his pride, reverse his position and apply for membership of the EEC after all. To the government’s shock, the perception of Britain as increasingly dominated by the United States led to the French president, Charles de Gaulle – never an Anglophile and now increasingly mistrustful – applying the French veto to British accession. To top all that, Macmillan’s increasingly battered and unpopular government was further hit by a series of three scandals: John Vassal was found to be an Admiralty employee spying for the Soviet Union; Kim Philby who Macmillan had backed against suspicions that he was a Soviet spy confirmed that he actually was by defecting to Moscow; and the scandal around Christine Keeler and the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, did even further damage to the government’s credibility.By October, Macmillan could stand it no longer and, genuinely not well, he decided to resign as Prime Minister on health grounds.This episode runs a little longer than most, because it also mentions the new German translation of the podcast. It’s available at:https://open.spotify.com/show/08M357CvtiWJsnEGyxitco?si=64613c2919df4a27Illustration: Christine Keeler 1963, photograph by Lewis Morley. Keeler claimed that she wasn’t actually naked. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Lewis MorleyMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

18 Maj 15min

‘The wind of change’ was the other famous phrase of Harold Macmillan’s, along with ‘You’ve never had it so good’. It came in a speech in which he talked about how a movement had grown up in many countries, and particularly in Asia, for nations previously dependent on others to break free and become self-governing. Now, he told an audience in South Africa, a wind of change was blowing through Africa as similar, entirely legitimate nationalist aspirations were spreading from country to country in the continent. And it was. Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African colony to win independence, but it would be followed by many others in relatively quick succession. Some went easily. Others went after ugly incidents, notably in Kenya, where bloody fighting led to the use of torture and killings on both sides before the country achieved its freedom from the British Empire. And then there was South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe) which clung on for several more decades to white minority rule. They too got away from imperial rule, but there was no sense of their granting freedom to a majority – only to a tiny, elite minority. An elite which, during his childhood, even included a man whose name has become a household word around the world: Elon Musk. Illustration: A stamp with Queen Elizabeth II’s head from the British colony of Gold Coast, overprinted with Ghana Independence, marking the nation’s transition to self-government. Public DomainMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

4 Maj 14min

Macmillan overcame the terrible legacy of the Suez catastrophe and, running an economy focused on growth to fund increasing living standards, giving him the opportunity to annouce that people had never had it so good. That reflect both a genuine concern with eliminating poverty and as an effective electoral strategy, pulled off the trick by increasing the Conservative majority in its third consecutive general election win in 1959.Meanwhile, in the Labour Party, in opposition, the left-right split was causing serious dissension, with Nye Bevan leading the left and winning great support for his brilliance and his charisma, but a lot of criticism too for the damage done by views that were sometimes extremist. His group of troublemakers included the young and ambitious Harold Wilson. He, however, when he realised that aligning with the left wing was getting him nowhere, drifted rightwards, ending up by taking Bevan’s seat on the Labour Shadow Cabinet instead of backing his resignation from it. He then supported the rightwinger Gaitskell’s campaign to become Labour leader against Bevan. Macmillan found himself facing Gaitskell and Wilson in opposition to him as his continued dash for economic growth, alongside fear or inflation and pressure on the currency, led to his alternating between periods of economic relaxation and periods of retrenchment. Gaitskell and Wilson denounced ‘boom and bust’ economics.Things were beginning to turn nasty for Macmillan. But we haven’t seen how nasty yet.Illustration: Supermac as seen by Vicky Public Domain.Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

27 Apr 14min

Anthony Eden started his premiership well, chalking up a general election win and the lowest level of unemployment Britain has seen at any time since the Second World War. Little else went well, however. His Foreign Secretary, Harold Macmillan made a statement to the House of Commons exonerating Kim Philby from suspicion of being a Soviet spy. That was a statement he would live to regret.Far worse for Eden was what happened in Egypt. The nationalist Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956. Despite Eden’s lack of enthusiasm for European integration and his far greater commitment to the Commonwealth, and to the so-called special relationship between the UK and the United States, he decided to respond without consulting the US and in concert with France, one of those European powers he was so unenthusiastic on getting close to. They in turn colluded with Israel to invade the Egyptian territory of Sinai, after which they would react with horror, call on both sides to cease firing, and when that didn’t happen, send in troops themselves.Unfortunately, the world reacted with widespread anger at the actions of the Israeli-French-British coalition. The US, indeed, put huge pressure on Britain by threatening to sell British bonds, which would have massively damaged the British currency. They later blocked oil supplies to Britain.The result was that though the military action only got started on 29 October 1956, when Israel went into the Sinai, Britain called a ceasefire on 7 November. That angered the French, who have behaved with little confidence in the British or American military ever since. It also led to the ultimate defeat of the coalition, with the British government having to announce an unconditional withdrawal of its forces on 3 December 1956.Eden was made the scapegoat for the debacle. He resigned in January 1957, after less than two years in post. Many expected the succession to go to Rab Butler, who’d deputised for Eden while the latter was away recovering from a collapse in his health at the height of the crisis, but Harold Macmillan proved much too wily for him, outmanoeuvring him and taking the top position himself.We'll be getting to know Macmillan era next week.Illustration: Smoke rises from oil tanks beside the Suez Canal hit during the initial Anglo-French assault on Port Said, 5 November 1956. Public DomainMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

20 Apr 14min

The old man was back. The Conservatives won the 1951 election and Winston Churchill returned to Downing Street. And he really was an old man – nearly 77 when he took office. To many, he it seemed increasingly clear that he was unfit for office, but he wouldn’t leave, clinging on, in the end, for three and a half years. He did get various things done. He presided over the ending of rationing. He allowed the British secret service to work with the Americans to bring down the democratically elected government in Iran, to protect British oil interests, a move whose consequences we’re still suffering from today. And he also did all he could to lessen the risk of the world wiping itself out in a war using Hydrogen bombs, far more destructive still than the bombs that had actually been used against Japan. He appointed a Home Secretary, David Maxwell Fyfe, who would use the full power of the law against gay sex to make life miserable for a lot of gay men. His most notable victim was Alan Turing, an outstanding scientist of his generation, persecuted, subjected to chemical castration, and driven to an early death, it seems pretty clear, by suicide.Fyfe also believed strongly in the death penalty, even though this was a time when a couple of particularly striking miscarriages of justice came to light, miscarriages that led to the execution of innocent men. It would take decades to clear their names. But the death penalty would not be abolished at that time.Churchill’s attempt to do something about the Hydrogen bomb was his last great initiative in office, his last international action, his last pretext for putting off resignation. It, however, failed. Even so, he hung on another eight months, with no obvious excuse for not going. Still, if he had no excuse, it's clear today that he may well have had an understandable reason, other than the natural instinct of men in power to cling on to it as long as possible.He may simply have had no confidence that his designated successor, Anthony Eden, was up to the job. Something we’ll be checking up on next week.Illustration: Winston Churchill seeing Queen Elizabeth II to her car after dinner at Downing Street the day before he left office. Public Domain.Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

13 Apr 14min

Circumstances seemed unfavourable for a Labour victory in a 1950 election but, when it was held, Attlee managed to lead his party to the second win in its history. It took a majority of the popular vote, and even a majority of parliamentary seats, though way down from its previous landslide to a mere five.With that small majority, it was poorly placed to deal with the continuing financial difficulties of the country. These were made worse by involvement in the Korean War, which meant rearming. The funds for the war had to be found somewhere, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a rising star of the Party, Hugh Gaitskell, decided that had to come in part from raiding the National Health Service and the Social Insurance Fund.In disgust, the architect of the health service, Nye Bevan, resigned from the government. With him went another young rising figure, Harold Wilson, who had become the youngest cabinet minister in Britain in the whole of the twentieth century. At that stage he stood with the left and with Bevan, though later he would turn on his mentor, taking a seat in the Shadow Cabinet when Labour was back in Opposition, a seat vacated precisely by another resignation on principle by Bevan.There were difficulties internationally too, with the Mossadegh government in Iran set to nationalise British oil industries there, and nationalist forces in Egypt putting pressure on the British garrison guarding the Suez Canal. Attlee’s friend and loyal supporter, the long-time Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had died in April 1951, and his successor Herbert Morrison wasn’t up to the job, adding these foreign crises to the burden on Attlee.With Bevan’s left-wing group organising against him and making his parliamentary majority look decidedly fragile, the aging and tired Attlee called another election. Held on 28 October 1951, it saw Labour at last lose its majority and the Conservatives win one.Attlee was out. Churchill was back.Illustration: The Royal Festival Hall in London, souvenir of the 1951 Festival of Britain, itself marking the centenary of the Great Exhibition in Victorian times. Photo by a Wikipedia contributor. Public Domain.Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

6 Apr 14min