I thunk you put too much emphasis on wealth as wellbeing, GDP is a good measure of the development of a country but it puts everyone in one group, the fact that the post-war labour party created the NHS is of vital importance to the wellbeing of the country which shouldn't be forgotten, also there are other non-economic factors such as the creation of nacional parks which are in Atlee's favour
Good summary. As you hint though all the blame should not go to Attlee, the post war Conservatives were almost as bad, and certainly didn’t try very hard to rectify much of what the Attlee Government did until Thatcher. The Conservatives were mostly responsible for the various attempts to maintain the value of the pound against the dollar, a totally vanity project concerned not with the welfare of citizens but the prestige of politicians and high ranking establishment. This caused endless harm to UK industry and was responsible for a lot of industrial unrest. The decision of Mrs Thatcher to float the pound was probably her most important act, ranking with privatisation and council house sales, in terms of egalitarianism and improving the economic well-being of UK.
Finally I must mention the most stupid act of the Attlee Government which was the decision of Stafford Cripps to give the Nene jet engine design to the Russians. Stalin could believe they would do this saying "What fool will sell us his secrets?". The possession of developed jet engine technology meant that MiG 15 was able to outclass all western aircraft in the Korean war leading to the partition of Korea and the millions of dead as a result.
I know this is rather old now, but wrt housing couldn't you equally put the blame at Thatcher's feet given that, while privately built housing did decline because of TCPA, public house building was still progressing at quite a rate, whereas following right-to-buy etc., the lack of privately built housing was now compounded by the lack of public housing? Also, while I'm not going to defend nationalisation of coal etc., stop-go surely has to get some of the blame for low post-war growth. I mean, poor growth in the 1960s, for instance, was largely a product of the currency crises which had been created by more than a decade of stop-go and a resulting disastrous balance of trade deficit. I mean the growth situation was hardly any better under the post-Attlee Conservatives, despite the denationalisation of steel etc. and cuts to direct taxation, so much so that growth and stop-go was practically the central issue of the 1964 and 1966 elections.
I thunk you put too much emphasis on wealth as wellbeing, GDP is a good measure of the development of a country but it puts everyone in one group, the fact that the post-war labour party created the NHS is of vital importance to the wellbeing of the country which shouldn't be forgotten, also there are other non-economic factors such as the creation of nacional parks which are in Atlee's favour
Good summary. As you hint though all the blame should not go to Attlee, the post war Conservatives were almost as bad, and certainly didn’t try very hard to rectify much of what the Attlee Government did until Thatcher. The Conservatives were mostly responsible for the various attempts to maintain the value of the pound against the dollar, a totally vanity project concerned not with the welfare of citizens but the prestige of politicians and high ranking establishment. This caused endless harm to UK industry and was responsible for a lot of industrial unrest. The decision of Mrs Thatcher to float the pound was probably her most important act, ranking with privatisation and council house sales, in terms of egalitarianism and improving the economic well-being of UK.
Finally I must mention the most stupid act of the Attlee Government which was the decision of Stafford Cripps to give the Nene jet engine design to the Russians. Stalin could believe they would do this saying "What fool will sell us his secrets?". The possession of developed jet engine technology meant that MiG 15 was able to outclass all western aircraft in the Korean war leading to the partition of Korea and the millions of dead as a result.
I know this is rather old now, but wrt housing couldn't you equally put the blame at Thatcher's feet given that, while privately built housing did decline because of TCPA, public house building was still progressing at quite a rate, whereas following right-to-buy etc., the lack of privately built housing was now compounded by the lack of public housing? Also, while I'm not going to defend nationalisation of coal etc., stop-go surely has to get some of the blame for low post-war growth. I mean, poor growth in the 1960s, for instance, was largely a product of the currency crises which had been created by more than a decade of stop-go and a resulting disastrous balance of trade deficit. I mean the growth situation was hardly any better under the post-Attlee Conservatives, despite the denationalisation of steel etc. and cuts to direct taxation, so much so that growth and stop-go was practically the central issue of the 1964 and 1966 elections.
freak
Fantastic post, thank you.