ADV INFO - 1945 General Election

Question 1

how many seats and votes did Labour get

Answer 1

11,967,746 votes and 393 seats

Question 2

how many seats and votes did Conservatives get

Answer 2

9,972,010 votes and 210 seats

Question 3

What was the issue with the Conservative campaign

Answer 3

they were trying to ride off of the success of Churchill in the war and were not really portraying a real message

Question 4

what was the Conservative campaign slogan?

Answer 4

confirm your confidence in Churchill

Question 5

Who were the Labour leaders in the wartime coalition

Answer 5

Ernest Bevin (Minister of Labour) and Herbert Morrison (Home Secretary)

Question 6

What did the Labour coalition ministers do during the war

Answer 6

they tended to be responsible for domestic matters and encouraged the belief that a Labour Government would be run sensibly

Question 7

How had Clement Attlee been described

Answer 7

calm and statesmanlike

Question 8

Who voted heavily in favour of Labour

Answer 8

the armed forces

Question 9

what was the title of the Labour manifesto

Answer 9

Let’s face the future

Question 10

What did Michael Foot tell voters in Plymouth

Answer 10

‘We shall not have won the peace until every citizen of England has a good roof over his head, the chance to marry and bring up his children, safe from the fears of unemployment, sickness and worry’

Question 11

What did the Labour party fervently adopt in their manifesto

Answer 11

the welfare reforms outlined in the Beveridge Report.

Question 12

What was the public reaction to the Beveridge Report

Answer 12

86% of the population were in favour of the report

Question 13

What things became acceptable throughout the war

Answer 13

rationing, economic controls and the mobilisation of Labour

Question 14

how was the use of state power seen

Answer 14

something that could make life fairer and improve conditions for the poorest - full employment, free school milk and free school meals demonstrated the benefits of this approach

Question 15

What shocked many middle-class families

Answer 15

the poverty of the evacuees they had welcomed into their homes and so became convinced of the need for greater state intervention

Question 16

What was there a feeling about referring to the working class

Answer 16

the working class people had earned the right to better conditions

Question 17

What did the Labour party criticisms of Conservative policies do

Answer 17

it won support from a number of intellectuals such as Hugh Gaitskell. Barbara Castle and Harold Wilson also joined the party during the war. They helped to ensure that the party had carefully thought-out proposals

Question 18

What did the Labour Party produce in 1937

Answer 18

‘Labour’s immediate programme’

Question 19

What happened to the points of the programme

Answer 19

they found their way into their election manifesto, such as the nationalisation of the bank of England and the coal mines

Question 20

what was the conservative campaign solely based off

Answer 20

Churchill’s wartime leadership

Question 21

How much was spent on the Conservative campaign

Answer 21

£3000 compared to the £30,000 spent in 1935

Question 22

What was virtually non-existent up to a few months before the 1945 election

Answer 22

local conservative party activism

Question 23

What had declined during the war

Answer 23

Conservative party organisation

Question 24

what was closed down during the war

Answer 24

Area offices and constituency associations due to staff being enlisted or were drafted into the forces

Question 25

how many agents were involved in war work in 1945

Answer 25

170 agents and 30 women organisers were engaged in war work

Question 26

What did the 1945 election lack

Answer 26

co-ordination, central direction and carefully composed policies

Question 27

What did Churchill fail to focus on

Answer 27

post-war reconstruction and instead focused on warning about the dangers of collectivism

Question 28

Why did many in the working class oppose Churchill

Answer 28

they remembered his role in events such as the general strike and remained angered by the Depression in the 1930s

Question 29

When was Churchill shouted down by workers

Answer 29

during a campaign speech in Walthamstow in the East End of London in 1945

Question 30

What policy of Churchill’s was out of step

Answer 30

his preoccupation with restoring the British empire (such as India)

Question 31

How did Labour benefit from the electoral system

Answer 31

they received 48% of the votes but 2/3rds of the seats

Question 32

How were the Conservatives electorally damaged

Answer 32

the wartime ‘electoral truce’, which required each of the parties not to ‘nominate candidates at by-elections… against the candidate party who held the seat at the time of the vacancy’.

Question 33

what happened to the Conservatives at the polls in 1945

Answer 33

he was humiliated

Question 34

What was the Labour promises under Attlee

Answer 34

far-reaching social change

Question 35

What did the Conservatives hope would be the winning ticket

Answer 35

Churchill the war leader

Question 36

Why had Churchill hoped to delay the election

Answer 36

He wanted victory in the pacific

Question 37

Why did Churchill’s wife worry about his ability to connect with workers

Answer 37

he was too aristocratic

Question 38

what did the working class not want to return to

Answer 38

the status quo

Question 39

how had Attlee proved himself during the war

Answer 39

as a useful deputy

Question 40

How did Churchill’s first election broadcast damage his own reputation

Answer 40

He compared Labour to the Gestapo

Question 41

How is Churchill’s attitude to welfare reform described?

Answer 41

he ignored them

Question 42

How did Churchill describe Beveridge?

Answer 42

an awful windbag and dreamer

Question 43

What was the Britain inherited by Attlee?

Answer 43

250,000 destroyed homes, factories were destroyed and morale was low

Question 44

What was Britain’s debt situation?

Answer 44

they were £3.5 billion in debt

Question 45

who did Attlee turn to for the debt?

Answer 45

John Maynard Keynes

Question 46

What was the loan that the USA gave them

Answer 46

$4 billion with interest

Question 47

What socialist books were widely read

Answer 47

Eleanor Rathbone’s A Case for Family Allowances

Question 48

what made labour appear to be competent and experienced

Answer 48

participation in the wartime coalition

Question 49

what themes would you use to answer an essay question on this

Answer 49

leadership, electoral campaigning, policies

Question 50

why were the publci angry at the Conservatives as a whole

Answer 50

due to their policy of appeasement