Labour’s triumph in the UK General Election is a key moment in our recent political history. What marks it out is not just the scale of the victory but that it brings to office a party which has spent 14 long years in the wilderness.
What makes it special is that it is only the second time since 1945 when the pendulum of politics has changed direction.
Labour’s victory just after the Second World War saw the start of a strong swing of the political pendulum. The NHS, social security, the retreat from Empire, comprehensive education. All these may have had their roots in earlier times but their real impetus and development can be drawn in a line from 1945 to 1979.
From 1945 to 1974 there were ten general elections and the party in power changed five times. What didn’t change was the broad direction of travel. Conservative governments may have had different degrees of policy emphasis but they followed an agenda set by that key post-war Labour government.
Tax rates rose, the social security net widened, the NHS grew, the government had five-year plans and it intervened in industry, Britain retreated, Union leaders came for tea at Downing Street.
In the beginning this change brought good: better healthcare longer healthier lives, education improved social mobility, and the unions........