British Attitudes (1945-1967)

Question 1

What did Macmillan make the Tory party

Answer 1

The party of posperity

Question 2

What Macmillan’s change to the nature of the Tory show about British attitudes at the time

Answer 2

More concerned about domestic issues

Question 3

How did people react to harsh treatment of Natives

Answer 3

consciences weren’t upset by Labour’s charges of oppression in Nyasaland and the brutal treatment of Mau Mau internees in the Hola camo

Question 4

Which group particularly still cared about empire

Answer 4

White settlers in colonies

Question 5

Why Marquees of Sailsbury resign in 1957

Answer 5

the exiled Cypriot nationalist leader Makarios returned

Question 6

How did decolonisation affect jobs etc

Answer 6

no jobs lost
no factories closeed
investment opportunites weren’t frustrated

Question 7

How much were exports to EEC/commonwealth worth by 1969

Answer 7

£2,634 million/£1,419 million

Question 8

Which countries in Africa gave British importers preferential terms by 1967

Answer 8

only Gambia and Malawi

Question 9

How did the UK becoming more liberal affect attitudes to empire

Answer 9

in a permissive society ideas of ruling other people were less subscribed to

Question 10

Give examples of the UK becoming more liberal

Answer 10

1967- homosexual acts and abortion became legal

Question 11

When was Lord of the Flies published

Answer 11

1954

Question 12

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

Answer 12

Schoolboys stranded on island regress to primitive ‘savagery’- parable about thinness of civilised values

Question 13

Richard Aldington’s Lawrence of Arabia (1955)

Answer 13

Lawrence a fraud- lied to Arabs- hero 'appropriate... for is class and epoch' 
Lawrence had been an imperial superhero
Aldington questioned what he stood for and values of a country that still honoured his memory

Question 14

John Arden’s Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance- appeared Oct 1959

Answer 14

Used an episode in the war against EOKA- Musgrave speaks of having returned from a ‘colonial war that is a war of sin and unjust blood’
old anti imperialist traditions of the radical left

Question 15

ITV

Answer 15

After shooting of 67 blacks at Sharpeville near Johannesburg ITV started ‘Divided Union’- hour long report on SA
‘This Week’ paid for recently released Nyasaland pol leader Banda to be flown to London for live interview

Question 16

Zulu (1964)

Answer 16

Battle stripped of its romance- mood is fatalistic

Question 17

Khartoum (1966)

Answer 17

Assault on moral justification
Charles Heston played Gordon- told BBC in 1969 ‘it seems that society’s interests are focused on victims rather than heroes’

Question 18

‘That Was the Week that Was’ and Private Eye both appeared in 1961

Answer 18

lampooned public figures

Question 19

Lindsay Anderson’s If (1969)

Answer 19

delivered side swipes at the lingering ideals of empire
film set in public school and takes title of Kipling’s best known poem
Empire and its architects are part of a broader target- inwardly cankered establishment

Question 20

What were some films which still conveyed the imperial meesage

Answer 20

• North West Frontier (1959)
• Guns at Batasi (1964)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Question 21

North West Frontier (1959)

Answer 21

British officer’s attempt to protect a Hindu prince from a murderous Muslim uprising
hinted that Empire in India had been necessary to preserve order

Question 22

What were most labour supporters attitudes towards empire

Answer 22

most labour supporters were ignorant of the empire and apathetic towards it
1948- 3/4 of pop didn’t know the difference between dominion and a colony and half couldn’t name a British colony