A History of England

After talking last week about his government's achievements in the social sphere, this episode looks at the difficulties Wilson faced in economics and foreign affairs.One way Wilson explored to address economic problems was to make a second application for Britain's entry to the Common market, then called the European Economic Community and now the European Union. However, like Macmillan before him, he ran into the immovable obstacle of de Gaulle, despite believing like Trump that he could overcome opposition by personal conversation with political leaders.He had the same disappointment in personal negotiations twice more. Once waswith the Rhodesian Prime Minister, Ian Smith, the second in his offer to mediate over the Vietnam War between US President Johnson and the Soviet Premier Kosygin.He did have some success, though it attracted him more ridicule than admiration, in the military intervention he authorised on the tiny Caribbean island of Anguilla and which came to be mocked as ‘the Bay of Piglets'.On the domestic front he'd long balanced the leadership ambitions of Jim Callaghan against those of George Brown. After Brown's departure, he did the same with Callaghan and Roy Jenkins. His hold on office came under threat as his public credibility sank. The threat intensified following the controversy over the proposals to control union activity through the courts, outlined in the paper ‘In Place of Strife'. Surprisingly advanced by a leftwinger, Barbara Castle, and backed by Wilson, it seemed to fly in the face of the rationale of Labour's very existence, founded as it had been to defend the unions.Eventually the proposals were dropped. Then with better economic news Labour began to climb in the polls. Encouraged, Wilson called a general election in June 1970. But it turned out that any optimism generated by the opinion pollsters was illusory.Ted Heath's Conservatives won the election and formed a new government.Incidentally, the German translation of the podcast has now moved past the Tudors and is now dealing with the Stuarts. It's available at:https://open.spotify.com/show/08M357CvtiWJsnEGyxitco?si=64613c2919df4a27Illustration: the kind of military action we can all appreciate. British forces restoring order in Anguilla in the 1969 ‘Bay of Piglets' operation (from Anguilla Police Unit 1969... By: Taff Bowen (AKA "Dickiebo"))Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

According to the English poet Philip Larkin, the sixties saw the invention of sexual intercourse. While that may not be quite the case, it was certainly a time when a lot of people decided that it was time to revolutionise the way society dealt with sex. The Wilson government saw in a lot of reforms in this direction.There was a partial decriminalisation of gay sex. Abortion was legalised. Divorce was made easier.And there were reforms too in other fields, such as the abolition of the death penalty for murder, the first steps to make racial discrimination illegal, and an explosion in educational opportunity, above all in higher education.But there were plenty of bleak moments too. The Aberfan disaster in Wales was an appalling tragedy. Nor was the economy doing anything like as well as Wilson might have liked. Indeed, after resisting devaluation in 1964 and 1966, he finally had to give way in 1967, cutting the value of sterling by just over 14%.That would be used against him. He'd fallen out with the press and devaluing after saying he wouldn't gave it a cause on which to attack. Especially when he said that the ‘pound in your pocket' hadn't been devalued. Oh, boy, that would be used against him.The end of the sixties wasn't looking too good for him.Illustration: The Swinging Sixties: Carnaby Street, London. From the National Archives, UKMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

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

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

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

‘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

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

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

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

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

What Attlee's government had shown was that, though it regarded itself as Socialist, it was a very distinctive kind of Socialism and heavily influenced by Liberal thinking. Where a more Marxist Socialist would take a class-based approach to politics, for Attlee the central figure was the Citizen and Citizens inhabited every class. Hence his universalist approach to social services, available to anyone who needed them irrespective of status. At the same time, he would not forbid those with the means to buy themselves other services, if they chose, from the private sector.His opposition to a harder-line brand of socialism had its corollary in his deep suspicion of Soviet behaviour internationally. His government invested whatever it needed to develop an independent British nuclear deterrent. It also became a founder member of NATO, and it also committed British forces to two major responses to Soviet aggressive moves: the Berlin airlift against the Soviet blockade on West Berlin, and the war in Korea, under the UN flag, against a Northern invasion of the South.Unfortunately, these military commitments, added on top of the need to control the remaining Empire, only added to the financial burdens on the government. That had led to a regime of austerity at home. In turn, the generated a widespread atmosphere of dissatisfaction with the government.As we'll see, that wasn't helpful in an election year.Illustration: A plane in the Berlin Airlift flying above children watching it come into Tempelhof Airport. NATO photographMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Of the five ‘giant evils' William Beveridge identified, the Attlee government set out to deal with want through social security, squalor through better housing, ignorance through more schooling and disease through the National Health Service. When it came to the fifth giant, idleness, the government's tackeld unemployment by setting out to rebuild the British economy and, overall, that didn't go too badly. Unemployment was kept to 2% of the workforce despite the return of two and a half million men to the employment market from the army, and a massive trade deficit was wiped out. But the price was a tough economy with rationing still in place and little in the way of luxury to make life more pleasurable. Survival had been made easier, but living was short of joy in a rather dour postwar Britain.Greyness at home was reflected in continuing decline abroad. This episode traces the loss of status and, indeed, of value of the pound, once the world's reserve currency, now forced aside by the dollar. It also looks at the sad story of how Britain handled, or rather mishandled, its territory of Bechuanaland in Southern Africa, behaving shamefully towards its hereditary ruler Seretse Khama and his white wife Ruth Williams, to accommodate the growing racism of South Africa, source of the uranium Britain needed for its A-bomb.Things went no more smoothly in Palestine, where Britain simply abandoned its mandate, leaving Jews and Arabs to sort out their differences themselves, kicking off the long series of repeating wars that have poisoned the existence of Israel ever since. To cap the episode off, we talk about the start of the Malaya emergency, a counter-insurgency war as ugly and as strewn with atrocities as any other. It underlines the lesson that it isn't government intentions that matter in such conflicts, it's the nature of colonial war itself that makes it vile.Illustration: Seretse Khama, first President of Botswana, and the first First Lady, Ruth WilliamsMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

In the July 1945 general election, the British public offered Winston Churchill, as he put it himself, the ‘order of the boot'. A victorious war Prime Minister was kicked out. In his place, his deputy, the Labour leader Clem Attlee became Prime Minister.There was massive enthusiasm for the Attlee government in the working class, which extended to many soldiers. These were the people let down after the First World War when the promise of a ‘Land fit for Heroes' was betrayed. They, and the government they elected, weren't going to let that happen again.But does that mean that the Attlee government was socialist? In this episode, we study the social reforms it introduced and how they built on advances made by earlier radicals, many of whom were not socialist. In particular, the principal inspiration for those reforms came from William Beveridge, author of the Beveridge Report. Far from being a socialist, he was a Liberal, even briefly a Liberal MP.He'd identified five giant evils, want, ignorance, squalor, disease and idleness. This episode looks at the reforms designed to address the first four of these. The fifth, idleness, we'll return to later.Illustration: Nye Bevan talking to a patient in Park Hospital, Trafford, Manchester, on the first day of the NHS, 5 July 1948. Image: Trafford Healthcare NHS/PA WireMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

It was a strange world that emerged from the Second World War.Both genocide and the mass killing of civilians, above all through bombing, culminating with the A-bombs dropped on Japan, had become somehow normalised. They rather weaken the case of the developed nations, which made these things happen, denouncing ethnic cleansing and terrorist bombs when they happen again today.The Soviet Union had massively extended its control of territory and what Churchill called an ‘iron curtain' had as a result descended across Europe, dividing the continent in two.As for Britain, it had emerged broke, a condition it might have hoped the US would help with, discovering with some shock that actually the aid that flowed in under lend-lease would be stopping far more quickly than expected. Instead, the British government would have to negotiate a loan, which it finally paid off sixty years later.As for its imperial role, the Empire was beginning to fall apart. The major step was the independence of India, something on which the new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, had been keen for a long time. Sadly, it was done too quickly and botched, amongst massive violence and bitterness, especially with the partition of India to allow the creation of Muslim Pakistan. The violence and pain continued to decades, with wars and genocidal actions, not just in India and Pakistan but also in the other parts of the British Indian empire, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). That rather leads to the question, might it not have been better had Britain never set out to rule India in the first place?Illustration: Muslim refugees attempting to flee India sit on the roof of an overcrowded train near Delhi in September 1947. From The Guardian. Photograph: APMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Following the German surrender in May 1945, the ‘Big Three' – the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain – met for the third and last time in conference. And this time, appropriately, they met on German territory, in Potsdam near Berlin. It was Soviet-held territory too, perhaps significant given the power with which the Soviet Union was emerging from the war.Indeed, its delegation was the only one to keep the same leader, Joseph Stalin, at its head, as he had been at Tehran and Yalta. Roosevelt had died. As for the British, after nearly ten years without a general election, they finally held one, and to general surprise, the victorious war Prime Minister Churchill was defeated by his deputy, Clement Attlee, the Labour leader. Attlee would form the first ever Labour government with a parliamentary majority. He would also take over from Churchill as leader of the British delegation at Potsdam.The conference took place under the shadow of the first successful test of a nuclear device, the day before the conference started. The US was now a nuclear power. That gave it quite an edge in international power politics.Although the device had been designed to use against Nazi Germany, since only Japan was left in the war, and given how high the casualties would be in an invasion of the Japanese home islands, the Americans dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. To make sure the message had got through, they dropped another on Nagasaki on the 9th. The Japanese surrendered on the 15th, the only concession to their sensibilities being that the Emperor was not deposed. When the final Japanese surrender document was signed on 2 September, World War 2 was at last over. Illustration: The A-bomb dome in Hiroshima, Japan. Public DomainMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

At the Yalta conference, between the US, the Soviet Union and Britain, the tensions between the Allies became increasingly obvious. Representing Britain, Churchill wanted the Allies' war effort to be directed in such a way as to limit Soviet control over Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviets wanted to make sure they maximised the area they controlled. And given how powerfully they were surging towards Germany, it was hard to see how they could be blocked. Certainly, the Americans saw no way to stop them and weren't prepared to go along with Churchill's schemes for trying.The result was that the Soviets ended up completely controlling such nations as Poland and Czechoslovakia, and several other countries of Eastern Europe. They also got to Berlin first and symbolically planted a Soviet flag on top of the German Reichstag (parliament) building. With Hitler committing suicide while Soviet forces were only 500 metres away, this meant that when the Nazis surrendered on 8 May (to the western powers) or 9 May (to all the Allies including the Soviets), Stalin was in a powerful position among the victors.Illustration: A Soviet soldier plants a flag on the Reichstag building in Berlin. Public DomainMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

By the time of the Yalta conference in February 1945, between the USA, Soviet Union and Britain, the latter still being treated as a great power though its decline was already clear, there could be little doubt that the war in the west, at least, was heading towards victory for the Allies.The Soviets were sweeping through eastern Europe and were only 65 km from Berlin.The D-day landings had gone well, in great part thanks to the brilliant planning work of Admiral Bertram Ramsay, and since then – despite a few setbacks, at least two of the more serious down to Bernard Montgomery – the America and British armies had swept through northern France, liberating Paris, and then Belgium. Meanwhile, another landing, this time by American and French troops, in the south of France had added further momentum to the advance.The war was drawing to its end. The main leaders of the Allies came to Yalta to discuss what happened to Europe next, once peace had been secured. The decisions we'll talk about next week, but for now it was clear that all the Allied sides would be negotiating from positions of strength.Illustration: Driving down the Champs Elysées of newly liberated Paris, with the Arc de Triomphe behind, on 26 August 1945, the halftrack ‘Guernica' from the Ninth Company – La Nueve – manned by exiled republican veterans of Spain's civil war, from Philippe Leclerc's Deuxième DB. Public DomainMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

In 1943, Britain didn't feel the Western Allies were ready yet for an invasion of France, and with its influence at the highest point it ever reached, it was able to persuade the Americans reluctantly to postpone it for the moment. Instead, they went for an invasion of Sicily, which went well overall, though with significant casualties. Bertram Ramsay, who'd handled the Dunkirk Evacuation so well, commanded the naval forces and learned some invaluable lessons about this kind of combined operation.The Allies moved onto the Italian mainland next, and after overthrowing Mussolini, the government there surrendered. Mussolini, rescued by the Germans from captivity, was set up ruling a rump and unpleasant republic in the north of Italy, and the fighting continued.The Americans, though, now finally decided that enough was enough and that preparations had to be made for the French invasion. Stalin couldn't agree more, when the USA, Britain and the Soviet Union met in Tehran. Oddly, the Americans accepted Stalin's invitation to accommodation, which meant that every word they said was heard by the Soviets.The agreement was for an invasion in May 1944. There were a few obstacles on the way, but in the end it went ahead only slightly delayed, on the 6th of June.D-day! We've finally got there. And Allied troops were once more back on French soil.Illustration: 1944 Royal Navy official photo of Admiral Bertram Ramsay, Naval Commander during both Operation Husky and Operation Overlord. Public DomainMusic: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

The tide turned against the Axis and in favour of the Allies in the course of 1943. Victories at Stalingrad in Russia, in the Battle of the Atlantic, and in North Africa, came on top of American advances in the Pacific, from island to island towards Japan. That relieved some of the pressure on the British government, that had been coming under fire for the all the disasters of 1942: the shipping losses in the Battle of the Atlantic, the loss of Burma and Malaya culminating in the fall of Singapore, and the Eighth Army's retreat in front of Rommel in North Africa. Within the British government, things had changed since the start of the war, with the Conservatives Chamberlain and Halifax gone, as well as the poorly performing Labour Deputy Leader, Arthur Greenwood. Churchill and Attlee, so different in personality, had found an effective working relationship, with Attlee now officially Churchill's deputy, and deeply loyal to him. Attlee supported his boss on the big questions, such as the strategic bombing campaign against Germany, now considerably stepped up with the arrival of the Americans. That campaign was increasingly targeting civilians, making it arguably a war crime, or even simply terrorism, but it continued even though it never achieved its aim of breaking German morale. What it did do is divert a significant amount of German airpower from the Russian front to German home defence. The North African campaign had a similar effect: small scale though it was, it sucked in German troops who might otherwise have fought in Russia, and it cost the Luftwaffe dearly, helping the Soviets gain air superiority on the Eastern Front, as the Brits and the Americans won it in the West. Where Attlee differed from Churchill was over questions such as India. A terrible new famine in Bengal, handled with callousness by Churchill, ensured that the question of Indian independence remained a burning one. Attlee was also under pressure from his own party, with Labour demanding that the government adopt as immediate policy the Beveridge report, proposing major reforms to ensure the poor and workers emerged better off when Britain reconstructed itself after the war. Attlee resisted the pressure, since he felt that it was important to hold the Churchill government together, making only small changes until it had won the war, and saving the major reforms for peacetime. Illustration: The Cathedral of Lübeck in Germany burning after an air raid in 1942. Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1977-047-16, released for free public use. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

This is an episode for turning points. The year's 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad, where the unstoppable German offensive into Russia was finally stopped and turned around, with Soviet forces essentially fighting forwards to the two remaining, and grim years, of their war with the Nazis. The Battle of the Atlantic reached a peak where Britain looked as though it might actually lose not just that battle but the whole war, when a number of vital technical developments and the release, at last, of some more resources for convoy protection, at last gave them the edge over the U-boats. The man who replaced Auchinleck at the head of the British Eighth Army in North Africa, Bernard Montgomery, though always so cautious that he consistently failed to take advantage of any victory, nonetheless took credit for defeating Rommel because he was in charge at the Second Battle of El Alamein when that success was secured. With hindsight, it's clear that credit should in large part go to Auchinleck for the First Battle which laid the ground for the Second. With Operation Torch landing US and British troops in Morocco and Algeria, the Axis forces were caught in a pincer between them advancing eastward and the Eighth army pushing them westward. They finally surrendered on 13 May 1943. In the meantime, there'd been an ugly quarrel among the French about who should lead the newly liberated territories. Eventually, it would be won by de Gaulle, deservedly, but that was by no means obvious from the start. Finally, the episode gives a little insight into the character of a remarkable Free French general, Philippe de Leclerc, and one unit that came under his command, the Ninth Company of his Second Armoured Division, made up of exiled Republican veterans of Spain's Civil War. We'll be hearing about it, and about him. Illustration: Philippe Leclerc, the Free French general who never compromised with the collaborationist Vichy regime. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

The years 1941 and 1942 were tough ones… Things were going badly in the Battle of the Atlantic, with Germany threatening to strangle Britain by sinking more merchant ships than the British could bear to lose. In the Far East, the Japanese were giving the British, and indeed several other of the western nations previously seen as unbeatable, that they could be beaten by an Asian power. But by taking on the Americans, they'd made a mistake: the US had barely deployed its strength and, when it did, it first put a stop to Japanese advance by sea or land before it started to fight back. In Russia too, the German advance was running out steam. Unexpectedly tough resistance from the Soviets stopped the Germans short of their objectives. One army made it as far as the city now called Volgograd, then called Stalingrad. What happened to it there is something for our next episode. Meanwhile, in North Africa, late 1942 was when Rommel's breathtaking advance was at last halted at the First Battle of El Alamein in Egypt, by General Claude Auchinleck at the head of the British Eighth Army. Sadly, though, that hadn't come fast for Winston Churchill or the British Chief of Imperial General Staff, who relieved Auchinleck of his command. Credit for the victory would go to someone else. Again, a story for the next episode. Illustration: Officers on the bridge of a British destroyer escorting a convoy of ships, looking out for submarines. Public Domain Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Hitler, feeling himself obliged to help out his inept ally Mussolini, was dragged into two wars the Italian dictator had started but lacked the resources to prosecute to victory: in North Africa and in Greece. Where the Italians had failed, the Germans moved in with lightning speed, overrunning Yugoslavia and Greece, and driving the hitherto triumphant British into retreat in Libya. Britain meanwhile was feeling the pain of a German blockade, most effectively applied by submarines, the deadly U-boats of the German navy. Britain was stepping up its bombing of Germany (while also continuing to be bombed back itself), in the deluded belief that this might win the war. That limited its ability to extend air protection to convoys of ships crossing the Atlantic, where it came close to losing it. Then in June 1941, Germany made a colossal error. Despite having committed forces in North Africa and the Balkans, it went ahead with Hitler's pet project, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Suddenly Britain, previously without great power allies, found the Soviets dragged into fighting the Germans too. In December, Japan made an equally massive mistake, attacking the US in an air raid of Pearl Harbor. Now the US declared war on Japan and, when Germany in solidarity with its Axis partner in the Far East, declared war on the US, Britain found itself with another mighty partner in its war effort. It was a huge turnaround for Britain. Obtained not though its own efforts, though Churchill had done all he could to persuade the US into the fighting, but through the errors of its enemies. A failing with plenty of precedents in history… Illustration: Contemporary photo of the attack on Pear Harbo. Public Domain. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Following the Battle of France, came the Battle of Britain. Thanks, though, above all to the fighter pilots of the RAF – 20% of them from other countries, led by Poland and New Zealand – Britain weathered that storm, where France had been overcome by it. There'd been fewer than 3000 of those airmen but Britain owed its survival in the war to them so, as Churchill put it, never ‘was so much owed by so many to so few'. But Britain was far from out of the woods yet. There were worrying signs from the Far East where, taking advantage of France's defeat, Japan had occupied the north of Vietnam, then part of the French colony of Indochina. Its aim in doing so was to cut off a supply route to the Nationalist forces fighting the Japanese army in China, but it also brought Japan right up to the imperial territories of the European powers with holdings in the region: as well as France these were Britain, with its holdings in India and Malaya, as well as Holland in the Dutch the East Indies. Meanwhile, there was fighting in North Africa too, where the British overwhelmed the Italians attacking from Libya into Egypt. But then Rommel showed up with the German Afrika Korps. The tables were about to be turned. Illustration: A German Luftwaffe Heinkel He 111 bomber flying over East End of London on 7 September 1940. Photo from a German aircraft. Public Domain. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

The phoney war's over. The shooting war has begun. And it isn't going at all well. France is in collapse, its generals quickly turning defeatist and its politicians unable to shake them out of their inertia. Churchill tried hard, flying across to talk them into keeping up the fight, but without success. In the end, they surrendered to the Germans, being forced to sign an armistice in the same railway wagon, in the same forest, where they had previously forced the Germans to sign their armistice at the end of World War One. Britain was now more isolated than ever. Not as alone as many liked to think, since it had its empire and dominions still with it, and they supplied huge numbers of men. But without either of the growing world powers, the US or the Soviet Union. Now Churchill had to become tougher than ever. First, he had to see off Halifax, his own defeatist, serving in his war cabinet. Fortunately, he had the support of the Labour members, and the man invited as a guest, the Liberal leader too. When Chamberlain finally came down on his side, Churchill, buoyed by the success of the Dunkirk evacuation, could see off Halifax. Next, he had to show that he had the hard core, the ruthlessness even, to win the war. He did that but in a tragic action, the firing by British warships on a French fleet in Mers el-Kébir, in Algeria. The major loss of life among men who'd been allies weeks earlier was a bitter pill for everyone to swallow. Arguably, though, it prepared the British to develop the toughness for the harsh trial that was about to start. As Churchill warned, Hitler had now to turn his ‘whole fury and might' on them. That's the subject of next week's episode. Illustration: ‘Very well, Alone', cartoon by David Low, June 1940. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

This episode includes several extracts from recordings of speeches by Churchill, so that we can enjoy listening to his actual voice – on the other hand, I apologise for the background noise on the recordings, but they sound inauthentic if I try to remove it. We also meet a number of people who will continue to have a significant role later: a man who deserves to be better-known, the brilliant theoretician and practitioner of armoured warfare (sadly on the German side), Heinz Guderian; Erwin Rommel; Charles de Gaulle; Friedrich Pauls, attending an enemy's surrender now though better known for offering his own later; and Bertram Ramsay, another man who deserves to be far better known than he now is. All this is against the background of the devastating defeat of British and French forces in France, once Germany decided to end the phoney war (which had already started to be a lot less phoney in Norway) and, using the Blitzkrieg tactics favoured by Guderian, of rapidly-advancing armoured forces backed by air support and followed by infantry, broke though the French defences and rounded on the British Expeditionary Force and French troops in Northeastern France, pinning them against the Channel coast. Those Allied troops were caught in a vice that was closing on them. It was only the extraordinary ability of the man Churchill chose to organise their evacuation from Dukirk, Admiral Bertram Ramsay, and Churchill's own leadership, that allowed Britain to save the core of its army from destruction. Illustration: Troops waiting to be taken off the beaches at Dunkirk. Photo: EPA. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Britain, along with France, might well have declared war against Germany in September 1939. But that didn't lead to much fighting for the next eight months. There was some action at sea, during which the British Royal Navy put an end to German surface raiders, though it had still to face the worst threat to its maritime trade, which came not from ships on the surface, but from submarines. On land, in the west, there was practically no action, in what came to be known as ‘the phoney war'. It wasn't phoney for the Poles of course, who were being bombed and invaded, first only by the Germans from the west, but soon by the Soviets from the east too, rather confirming what many suspected, that the Nazi-Soviet pact included a secret protocol dividing up Poland between the two countries. The Pact also provided the Soviets with the confidence to invade Finland which they did at the end of November. Britain and France decided to come to the Finns' aid by landing troops at the Norwegian port of Narvik, but it took them so long that Finland had been defeated, after some heroic resistance, before the Allies could help. However, the Allies went on with the idea of landing at Narvik,to cut Germany's supplies of iron ore from Sweden, most of which went through the port. Unfortunately, they took so long and were so indiscreet in their plans, that Hitler pre-empted them, invading and occupying Denmark and southern Norway, and getting troops to Narvik first, able to resist the Allied landings when they finally happened. Though marginal in itself, the Narvik fiasco prompted a major debate in the British House of Commons, in which the government, although it won a final vote of confidence, did so with so small a majority that Chamberlain felt major changes had to be made. He decided it was time to form a national government, in coalition with Labour and the Liberals. That, though, proved impossible to pull off if he stayed on as Prime Minister. He stood down and, as the front runner to replace him, Halifax, said he wasn't prepared to take the post, it inevitably fell to Winston Churchill to shoulder the burden. Labour and the Liberals joined him. So it was together behind him, as depicted by David Low in a new cartoon, that they faced the next, far worse crisis that was about to hit Britain and France. Illustration: 'All behind you, Winston', cartoon by David Low, May 1940. In the front row from left: Churchill, Attlee, Ernie Bevin and Herbert Morrison. Behind Churchill is Chamberlain. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Between 1938 and 1939, Churchill went from pariah and opponent of the Prime Minister, to the man of the moment many were calling on to re-enter government. That reflected the gradual realisation that Churchill had been right in warning of the need to resist Hitler and of approaching war, while Chamberlain had been wrong to think he could preserve peace by appeasing the dictators. By the end, Chamberlain had actually gone so far as to ask Churchill whether he would join a war cabinet, though not so far as to offer him an actual post, when Churchill said he would. That was on 2 September 1939. By then, German troops were rolling across Poland, while their aircraft were bombing Polish cities. MPs were beginning to lose patience with Chamberlain, who was still talking about proposals to preserve the peace, when most were increasingly convinced that war was inevitable. It even reached the stage when, the same evening, a fellow Tory, Leo Amery, disgusted with Chamberlain's statement, called on Arthur Greenwood, the Labour spokesman of all people, to ‘Speak for England'. The next day, Chamberlain announced that Britain was at war with Germany. Illustration: Chamberlain broadcasting the news of war with Germany to the nation, 3 September 1939. BBC photograph. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

The Munich Agreement had bought peace. But at a price. The highest had, of course, been paid by Czechoslovakia which lost much of its territory. But there was also a cost in the increasing distrust of the Soviet Union, another of the protecting powers of the Czechs, which had simply been left out of the Munich negotiations, towards the Western Powers. In Britain, though, Chamberlain enjoyed a burst of popularity, as the man who'd preserved the peace. It would be short-lived, however, as the enormity of the betrayal of the Czechs sank in. And after the sheer horror of the pogrom across Germany known as Kristallnacht, there was a swing against appeasement and against the government. That became stronger after Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. The invasion in effect tore the Munich Agreement to shreds. Now the pressure for a strong stance against Hitler, and in particular to come to an agreement with the Soviet Union to help, became too powerful for Chamberlain to resist. But the British conducted negotiations with the Soviet Union in such a casual way, so dismissively of the Soviets, that failure was unavoidable. Within days of the collapse of the negotiations, the Soviet Union announced that it had signed a Non-Aggression Pact with the Nazi Germany. This was one of the most shameful international agreements ever signed. But Britain's stance had contributed to it. What's worse, the pact, the second biggest shock of 1939, would lead within a week to the biggest of all. Which we'll tackle, appropriately, in a week's time. Illustration: David Low, ‘Rendez-vous'. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

With the Austrian annexation complete, Hitler could now start eying up his next target, Czechoslovakia again. Although Italy had proved absolutely no help to Britain in trying to stop Hitler's move against Austria, Chamberlain had given his word to put in place an agreement which would accept the Italian occupation of Abyssinia in return for some Italian commitments in the Mediterranean, over the Suez Canal, and to stop intervening in the Spanish Civil War. Chamberlain seems to have felt that he had to go ahead with this agreement and submitted it to the Commons for approval. With Conservative anti-appeasers rather muted, even Churchill, the opposition had to be led by Attlee. He was Leader of the Opposition, which was now oddly enough a paid post. He had also strengthened his position in the Labour Party, especially since two colleagues, Bevin and Dalton, had forced through a change of policy to stop opposing the government's plans for defence spending – they felt that such expenditure was increasingly needed in the face of the growing threats from the dictatorships. Attlee also spoke out loudly in defence of the Spanish Republic, especially after a visit there in late 1937. The House of Commons approved the agreement with Italy despite the opposition to it. That in effect turned a blind eye to Italy's breach of international law in Abyssinia. Now Hitler prepared his next breach of such law. Faced with what seemed to be an imminent Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain travelled out to see Hitler three times, on the last occasion accompanied by the French Prime Minister, Daladier, and the Italian dictator, Mussolini. The resulting Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany to absorb a huge part of Czechoslovakia, on the pretext of protecting the German-speaking minority in those areas, left the country defenceless to future attack. In the parliamentary debate on the Agreement, Churchill emerged as the champion of the anti-appeasement cause, though Attlee too spoke out powerfully against it. But there was relief across the country and in most parts of the House of Commons that peace had apparently been preserved. That left the anti-appeasers swimming against the current of public and political opinion. The peace that Chamberlain had bought would, however, not last long. Illustration: Chamberlain waving the Munich Agreement on his return to England at Heston Aerodrome. ‘Peace for our time'. Public Domain Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

We start this week with Hitler announcing that there would be no more surprises, though we immediately question whether his word could always be wholly trusted. We go on to look at the way Hitler was building a regime which didn't just want war, above all against what he saw as a Jewish-Bolshevik menace, but actually needed it as the only way to obtain basic products for the German population, and raw materials that the military machine itself had to have. Meanwhile, British foreign policy was under new management, with Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary in place of the disgraced Samuel Hoare. The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, told him he wanted better relations with Germany and when Eden asked how he was to obtain them, he told him that it was Eden's job to work that out. But then Baldwin stood down, and his successor, Neville Chamberlain, had a different approach. He wanted to run foreign affairs himself, and he was intent on going flat out for appeasement. That finally brought the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary into a head-on clash, over concessions to Italy, in the hope of securing Mussolini's assistance. Chamberlain was prepared to recognise that Italy had the right to invade and occupy Abyssinia (Ethiopia today), even though that was a breach of international law. Eden was in favour of appeasement, but not at the cost of unreasonable concessions, and this one he decided really wasn't reasonable. Eden went. His replacement was Lord Halifax. He'd recently been on a hunting trip to Germany as the guest of Hermann Goering, and came back convinced that the Nazi leaders were reasonable men with whom a sensible set of arrangements could be negotiated. Then Hitler showed that the age of surprises really wasn't over. He sent troops over the border into neighbouring Austria, to absorb it into the German Reich. There was no resistance in the country, and none from outside either, including from Britain. European great powers didn't greatly rate the rights of Africa's native peoples. Writing off the rights of the Abyssinians therefore was no great shock. But this was Austria, a European country, and Hitler invaded and annexed it without the slightest attempt to stop him from abroad. It seemed that appeasers were prepared to step across some red lines in their bid to buy peace through concessions to dictators. Illustration: Members of the Nazi organisation, the League of German Girls, celebrating the arrival of German troops in Vienna. Dokumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

We're still looking at 1936, a year packed with so many events that it's taken two episodes to review the main ones. This week, on the domestic, British front: - The year of three kings, as one died, another abdicated for love, and the third took the throne - The Battle of Cable Street where 100,000-300,000 or more counter demonstrators turned out to stop the British Union of Fascists marching through Jewish districts of East London - The Jarrow March and Ellen Wilkinson, the fiery MP for the constituency, and the campaign to tackle the problems of poverty and unemployment in the world's greatest enpire And in foreign affairs: • Hitler makes clear that whatever's wrong, it's down to the Jews • Then silences anti-Semitism and general oppression for a while, to make a success of the Berlin Olympics, spoiled only by an outstanding black athlete from the US • Despite the attempts of the British government, backed by Churchill, to curry favour with Mussolini, he signs the Axis agreement with Hitler • Labour's policy on rearmament and on the Spanish Civil War remains incoherent and badly in need of revision. Plus from the left of Labour comes an extraordinary call for defeatism in front of Nazi Germany Lots of exciting stuff, then. And it wraps up the year so we can move on next week. Illustration: Ellen Cicely Wilkinson leading the Jarrow Marchers, Fox Photos Ltd, 31 October 1936. National Portrait Gallery x88278 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

This episode is our first look at the exciting year of 1936. It was a time when some British politicians tried to appease one dictator, Mussolini, by taking no action to stop invading Abyssinia, in order to have his support against a far worse one, Hitler. As it happens, the effect was only to let Mussolini get away with occupying Abyssinia, leaving the League of Nations even more discredited, and making Britain and France looking pretty foolish. Indeed, that result only encouraged Hitler, who sent troops into the Rhineland which, though German territory, the Treaty of Versailles had demanded should remain demilitarised. It would have been a great moment to block Hitler without fighting a world war, but neither France nor Britain had the will to take military action. Meanwhile, following a military mutiny and uprising, a Civil War had broken out in Spain. The Western powers and the Soviet Union responded with a non-intervention policy, so that all foreign states would stay well out of the war. The reality was that Germany and Italy provided colossal assistance, including military forces, to the Nationalist side of the war, while the Soviet Union provided limited and heavily conditioned assistance to the Republicans. Britain and France kept the pretence of non-intervention, while Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union were intervening the heck out of the place. In passing, since those three nations were major players in the Second World War in Europe, it strikes me that, just as we should date the start of the war generally to September 1931 rather than September 1939, so we should date the start of the war in Europe to the start of the Spanish Civil War, on 17 July 1936. Meanwhile, in Britain Clement Attlee, new leader of the Labour Party was gradually moving the party towards accepting the need for rearmament. What's also striking is that, like Churchill, he was looking for some kind of collaboration with the Soviet Union if it came to war with Germany, but even more the United States, which both felt should take the leadership of a Western alliance to defend democracy. Illustration: Italian anti-tank gun at the battle of Guadalajara in the Spanish Civil War. CC BY-SA 3.0 de. Photo by H.G. von Studnitz, from Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-2006-1204-500, Spanien, Schlacht um Guadalajara.jpg Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Britain and France reckoned they'd secured the support of Italy, in the Stresa Front, for their efforts to contain Hitler. Britain was the first to undermine that pleasant understanding, by signing a naval agreement with Nazi Germany on its own. Even so, the British government did what it could to keep Mussolini's Italy in the Front, a position shared by Winston Churchill. He was already ringing alarm bells over Germany but, proving how difficult prediction can be, he got Italy (and indeed Japan) completely wrong. Then Mussolini showed his true colours by preparing to launch an invasion of Abyssinia, which is now Ethiopia, to extend Italy's imperial holdings in Africa. Doing so meant spitting in the face of the League of Nations, even though Italy was a member. But Mussolini could do that with impunity. The League, only as powerful as its members, and above all its great power members, Britain and France, allowed it to be, took no effective action against it. In the face of that spinelessness, Mussolini went ahead with his invasion. That had a surprising impact on the Labour Party, whose annual conference started the day after news of the Italian invasion arrived in Britain. Labour decided that it had no further patience with its declared pacifist leader, George Lansbury. He resigned and the jostling started to pick a successor. Clement Attlee, who'd been Lansbury's deputy, was given the job on a temporary basis, as Britain went into the 1935 general election. It was a huge win for the Tories but Labour also did well, winning nearly three times as many seats as in 1931. Attlee who'd led the party into that success was boosted by it. Viewed by many as poorly qualified for the job and short of personality, he saw off others who thought themselves better suited, and to the surprise of many, was confirmed as leader. Illustration: Italian officers consulting maps as they advance into Abyssinian territory. Public domain Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

In the mid-1930s, there was still widespread hope across Britain that a major war could be avoided. That could be achieved, many believed, by international negotiation towards disarmament, and by collaboration to enforce the decisions reached. A body existed to achieve just that: the League of Nations. It called a major conference, chaired by Arthur Henderson, former British Foreign Secretary, former leader of the Labour Party. It set out with plenty of great intentions but achieved nothing. Too few countries were prepared to trust others enough to make the cuts in their armaments that might have made a real difference. Meanwhile, another British politician, this time a Conservative, Lord Robert Cecil, one of the architects of the League of Nations and president of the British association dedicated to supporting it, the League of Nations Union, was campaigning for international collaboration to give real force to decisions of the League or elsewhere, so that breaches could be genuinely and effectively punished. He organised an unofficial referendum in Britain, the Peace Ballot, completed in 1935, that showed how massively the British people supported efforts for peace. Sadly, though, that year, 1935, would be the peak of such efforts. Thereafter events would drive the world increasingly towards another war. Indeed, one of those events had already happened, as early as in September 1931: the Japanese invasion of the Chinese territory of Manchuria. Someone like the outstanding political cartoonist David Low would go so far as to identify that moment as the true start of the Second World War. That notion, with which this episode starts, rather suggests that efforts to prevent the Second World War reached their peak, only to fall away afterwards, when it could be argued that, actually, it had already started. Illustration: The Doormat, cartoon of 1933, by David Low. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

We start this episode with the unveiling of the statue of Edward Carson at Stormont Castle in Northern Ireland. It rather makes the point that a man who helped organise an armed force against British law, and even to call on British soldiers to mutiny rather than fire on rebels – no doubt because to him and his friend they were the right kind of rebels – could get away with such behaviour if he had the backing of the right circles of power back in England. Not just get away with it, in fact, but be honoured with a statue. From there, we move to India where a man like Gandhi kept finding himself being gaoled by the British authorities for actions far less noxious than Carson's. A brown-skinned Hindu simply couldn't be allowed to call on action against the rule of the British government, even if that action was far less subversive of the law than what the white-skinned Protestant Carson had championed. As it happens, the National government in Britain was beginning to consider the possibility of granting a little more autonomy to India, though nothing like as much as enjoyed by white-ruled holdings, such as Australia or Canada, which enjoyed Dominion Status, giving them almost independence. That was far too little for Gandhi, or for Clement Attlee and his Labour Party. On the other hand, it was far too much for Winston Churchill. He fought the government all the way to the point, by the end, of becoming something of a figure of fun in the House of Commons. No one proved that better than his chief tormentor, Leo Amery, despite being a fellow Conservative and a contemporary of his at Harrow school. He used mockery against him in a way that Churchill himself might have been proud of had he used it himself. But the real danger for Churchill was that he was perilously close to becoming a bore. Illustration: the Carson statue outside the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Stormont Castle, outside Belfast. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

It was a terrible time for Labour, down to just 52 MPs and having to choose a new leadership from a narrow pool from which most of the brightest lights, in the view of many but above all their own, were excluded. The Tories were on top of the world, with a clear majority. MacDonald still led the the National government, but in complete dependence on the Conservatives for his survival in office. A sharp change in direction of economic policy ended the linkage to the gold standard and introduced tariffs on imports. Both initiatives started to improve things, with growth back and with some strength. But the poor remained desperately poor. Illustration: composite of the Labour Party leader, George Lansbury, and deputy leader, Clement Attlee, chosen by default because the obvious candidates weren't available. Both photos from the National Portrait Gallery: Attlee by Walter Stoneman, 1930, NPG x163783; Lansbury by Howard Coster, 1930s, NPG Ax136093 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

This episode looks at the impact in Britain of continuing trouble in India. There Gandhi had launched his salt march, walking to the sea to make salt, in breach of the British monopoly and the heavy tax on salt inflicted by the colonial authorities. That had led to his being gaoled. In Britain, the report of the Simon Commission recommended limited reform in India, but not the granting of Dominion Status. That was in spite of the view of one of the Commission's co-chairs, Labour's Clement Attlee, who had been convinced of the need for that status following his travels with the Commission around India. The Prime Minister called a Round Table conference in London which had representation from many Indian groups, unlike the Simon Commission which had had none. Unfortunately, the gaoled Gandhi's organisation, the Indian National naturally didn't attend, and it was the most significant in the sub-Continent. That rather underlines how silly it is to label an opponent as criminal and then proclaim that you don't talk to criminals – it makes negotiations meaningless. Fortunately, the Viceroy of India Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax) released Gandhi and agreed the Gandhi-Irwin pact with him, which included his attendance at a second Round Table. Winston Churchill was furious that any moves were being made towards Indian self-rule at all, and that his party leader Stanley Baldwin backed them. Baldwin was also under pressure from a campaign by press barons to make him adopt a policy backing tariffs on imports. Baldwin saw off that pressure, denouncing the newspaper proprietors for pursing power without responsibility, ‘the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages'. Even so, he began to soften his own opposition to tariffs, further adding to Churchill's disquiet. By January 1931, he'd had enough and resigned from Baldwin's leadership team. That, for him, was the start of what he would later call his ‘wilderness years'. Illustration: Gandhi, for Churchill a seditious, half-naked fakir, visiting millworkers in Lancashire while in England for the Second Round Table conference. Photo by Keystone Press Agency Ltd. National Portrait Gallery x137614. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

The ‘flapper election' took place on 30 May 1929. The reference was top ‘flappers', fashionable and slightly shocking young women of the 1920s, who could vote in it because, at last, universal suffrage had been introduced for all adults of 21 or over irrespective of sex or property. The Tories, who'd made some moves, perhaps rather more modest than many might have hoped, towards alleviating property and had been responsible for the reform that gave the flappers the vote, might have hoped to be returned to office in gratitude. They weren't. Instead, Labour, the biggest single party but again short of a majority, formed a second government under Ramsay MacDonald. As before, and like the Baldwin government that preceded it, it tried to cut public spending. The economy remained stuck in the doldrums and then, after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, it tanked. Workless numbers soared. In 1931, MacDonald decided that the only way to keep reducing spending was to cut unemployment benefit. That was unacceptable to the majority of Labour. The party split over the issue, a split confirmed when MacDonald accepted the king's plea to stay on as Prime Minister but at the head of a ‘National Government' including ministers from all three the main parties, Conservative, Labour and Liberal. It in turn went to the country, as the National Government, seeking a ‘doctor's mandate' to cure the nation's ills, on 27 October 1931. The results were spectacular: the National Government was returned to power with a colossal majority, 554 seats out of the total of 615 in the House of Commons. They were disastrous for official Labour, to a rump of just 52 seats. But the picture wasn't particularly encouraging for MacDonald either. He headed a group with an unassailable majority. However, among the government's MPs, 470 – a majority of the Commons on its own – were Conservative. His own so-called National Labour group only had 13. He was in office all right. But he was also trapped. He could do nothing without the support of the overwhelming Tory majority. Illustration: Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, (right), in a detail from a 1931 photo of the National Government cabinet by Press Associations Photos, with Stanley Baldwin (left), the Tory leader whose clear Commons majority of his own made him the real power behind MacDonald's throne. National Portrait Gallery, x184174. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

We pick up the story just after the defeat of the 1926 British General Strike. It was a bad time for the unions, with strikes accounting for only just over a fifth as many working days lost in the whole of the next ten years as they had in the single year of 1926. Meanwhile, the Labour Party seemed to be cosying up to some strange people, specifically Lord Londonderry, Tory and coal mine owner, who became a close friend of the Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald. It was also a bad time for the progressive movement, with the Baldwin government bringing in some fairly oppressive legislation, especially against unions and the Labour Party. There were, however, exceptions, in particular the introduction of universal suffrage for all adults (21 years and over) irrespective of sex (oddly enough brought in by a particularly tough Home Secretary, ‘Jix' (William-Joynson Hix). Neville Chamberlain also brought in some new social legislation, reducing the retirement age for contributory pensions and extending benefits to widows and children of workers who died. The effect was small but welcome. This was also the time when Churchill was riding high and increasingly in rivalry with that same Chamberlain, as they positioned themselves as potential successors to Baldwin for when he eventually retired. What Churchill didn't seem to realise, however, was that though he'd won most Tories round to his return to their party, too few of them trusted him enough to accept him as leader . The heir apparent, he would discover, wasn't him, it was Chamberlain. Illustration: Ramsay MacDonald, Labour leader (left), with his friend, the anti-Socialist and mine owner Lord Londonderry. Detail from a 1933 photograph by an unknown photographer. National Portrait Gallery, x198393. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

It's time for A History of England to take a short break, until 15 September. So this episode is a brief review of where we've got to, after the defeat of the General Strike. That defeat showed the poor in Britain, and workers in particular, that there was little hope of improvement in their conditions through union action alone. Instead political action would be needed, by a government disposed to adopt measures to help them. Which meant progress wasn't likely to happen soon. That left the majority in Britain in a sorry state, with poor and falling wages combined with high unemployment. Paradoxically, its Empire was at its peak, rather underlining the truth that imperial power didn't necessarily mean prosperity. What's more, even that Empire was under pressure. Decline was already under way, but not everybody had yet recognised the fact. Illustration: A sunset in Ireland (my own photo) Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

It's the general strike! This time the unions couldn't push Stanley Baldwin's government into making concessions to the miners. That was because while, in his own words, in the previous year Baldwin had not been ready, this time he was. When the miners came out and the TUC with them, they found the government ready to call up volunteers as strike breakers or special constables to support the police. The country had been divided into districts with Civil Commissioners in each of them, ready to ensure essential goods were distributed and order was maintained. In any case, any suggestion that the movement was revolutionary was belied by the moderation the strikers and their leaders showed. That didn't stop the hardliners in cabinet behaving as though they were facing a major threat to civilisation. Strangely, the leading hardliner was Winston Churchill, even though he was a former Liberal and always keen on alleviating the sufferings of the poor. He edited the government newspaper, the British Gazette, and turned it into a huge-circulation propaganda broadsheet pushing the government line. The BBC, too, broadcasting news for the first time, took a highly pro-government stance. And Churchill wasn't above making shows of military force to underline his propaganda points. The unions weren't ready for a long strike and their funds began quickly to run out. With legal action threatening against them, and their members suffering, the non-mining unions were looking for a compromise to end the strike. But the miners were at least as intransigent as the mine owners and the government. No compromise was possible. After nine days, the TUC called off the strike. The British Gazette gloatingly proclaimed ‘Surrender!' The unions had suffered a major defeat. And, once more, the miners were left to fight on alone. Illustration: Arthur Cook, the miners' leader, addressing a mass meeting of strikers. Public Domain Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

The Labour government was kicked out of office at the 1924 General Election, in a campaign marked by the Conservative-leaning Daily Mail engaging in some fake news. It published a forged letter claiming to be from the Soviet leader, Zinoviev, suggesting that re-electing Labour would prepare the ground for a Communist takeover. As it happens, Labour's popular vote went up by a million. But Tory votes were spread much more efficiently across constituencies, so they emerged with a solid majority in the Commons, while Labour lost seats. That result seemed to vindicate Baldwin's decision to call the previous election in 1923: though the Tories lost, because it rejected the notion of tariff protection, it removed the issue from the agenda and the divisions it produced within the Tory party. They therefore went into the 1924 election united and the effect was just what they wanted – a landslide victory. Baldwin's position was enormously reinforced. The 1924 election was also when Churchill returned to parliament, but no longer as a Liberal. He was back among the Conservatives in all but name, and to the amazement of many, Baldwin gave him what many see as the second most important position in government, that of Chancellor of the Exchequer. In that position, he took Britain back to the gold standard, against his own initial judgement. It was also against the view of Maynard Keynes, who thought it would damage industry, which it indeed did. The result was new unrest, particularly in the coal industry, with mine owners demanding longer hours and lower wages, which the miners were determined to resist. This time, they had solid support from other unions. The government bought a nine-month stay of execution by paying a subsidy to coal to protect wages and conditions but as the period for which the subsidy was paid drew to an end, tensions grew. Both the mine owners and the miners were adamant. It began to look as though a general strike was inevitable. Did that put Britain on the brink of revolution? Illustration: Baldwin, Tory leader and PM, with Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer, after re-ratting to the Tories. Public Domain Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

In contrast to the last episode, where we saw how dire the state of the British economy was and how close to violent confrontation society was coming, this episode is the one where we find Britain reaching the peak of its imperial grandeur. It seems that power abroad doesn't necessarily deliver either peace or prosperity at home. Meanwhile, at home, political instability continued. There were two more elections, in 1923 and 1924, making it three in three years. The middle one was brought on by Stanley Baldwin decided he needed to go for tariff protection for British industry, and decided he needed a mandate for it from the electorate, much to the annoyance of many of his colleagues who felt there was no need to jeopardise their comfortable parliamentary majority just because the leader had decided his conscience needed a new election. As it happened, he lost his bet, and ultimately the election resulted in the formation of the first ever Labour government. A minority government, vulnerable to any loss of support in the Commons, but a government all the same. Anyone, however, expecting radical change from it was in for a disappointment. Though, oddly enough, what brought it down was its supposed softness on communism. Illustration: Ramsay MacDonald in court dress. Public Domain. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

The promise of building Britain into a ‘land fit for heroes' never came close to being kept. Instead inflation undermined wages, unemployment rose, and living conditions, with widespread slum housing, remained dire. When the government handed coal mining, an industry employing over a million men, back to the private sector after having taken direct control during the war, the drive for profitability led to mine owners demanding major wage cuts. The miners struck and called on the Triple Alliance of Dockers, Miners and Railwaymen, the unions in what were by then the main industries, to support them. This episode looks at how that call failed on Black Friday in 1921, and why. It also looks briefly at how a new Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, saw off an attempt by one of the more entitled Lordlings of England, Lord Curzon, to become Prime Minister in his place, and how he found what slum housing was really like. Illustration: Striking coal miners in Neath, South Wales. Photo: Illustrated London News, 16 April 1921 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Before moving on from the times when Lloyd George held power, we take a look in this episode at one of the major moments of his time as an international statesman: the Paris Peace Conference and, above all, the specific agreement that emerged from it concerning Germany, the Treaty of Versailles. The episode draws heavily on the views of Maynard Keynes on the Treaty and its likely effects, in particular on its failure to react to the massive gap between the expectations of money from Germany by the victors and the real ability of Germany to pay. At the end, we look at the fact that as well as leaving a deep resentment in Germany of the victorious powers, it also left two nations that were actually with them, Japan and Italy, bitter with the outcome of the Paris conference. Germany, Italy and Japan. Compare that list with the membership of the Axis that the Allies would have to fight in World War 2 twenty years after the end of World War 1. An event which Keynes foresaw. Illustration: Covert og John Maynard Keynes's book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, of 1919. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

The Chanak crisis of 1922 brought Britain to the brink of war with Turkey. Saner heads, in particular those of both the British general on the spot and the Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal, soon to be Turkish president as Kemal Atatürk, defused the crisis and averted war. But Lloyd George's handling of the crisis, in which he took a distinctly hawkish stance, added further to the growing dissatisfaction with him as Prime Minister, and with his Coalition government, among rank and file Conservatives. That came to a head in the Carlton Club meeting in October, which voted for the Conservative Party to contest the forthcoming general election as a separate organisation and not merely a component of a Coalition. Both anti- and pro-Coalition ministers felt they had to resign from the government. The pro-Coalition Austen Chamberlain even gave up the leadership of the Conservative Party. Lloyd George, realising that his government was no longer viable, resigned. In the subsequent election, the Tories won themselves a strong working majority. The outcome for the Liberals was disastrous: they were overtaken by Labour which became the official opposition. Never since have the Liberals formed another government of their own, at best being a minor partner in someone else's. Bonar Law, who had returned to the leadership of the Tories, became Prime Minister. That didn't last long: cancer finished him within a few months, at which point he was succeeded by a Conservative who'd played a leading role in ending the Coalition, Stanley Baldwin. He and Ramsay MacDonald who had, in the meantime, again won the leadership of Labour, would dominate British politics into the mid 1930s in their rivalry and, sometimes, their collaboration. Illustration: Kemal Atatürk, who led the Turkish forces fighting for the independence of his country, inspecting troops in June 1922. Public Domain Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

In 1921 and 1922, the sharks were beginning to circle around Lloyd George. While he thought that getting a Peace Treaty for Ireland was a major success, many felt dissatisfied with a compromise that gave no one entirely what they wanted, and therefore had a sense of being betrayed. That sense deepened as violence continued to surge in Ireland, even leading to the murder by anti-Treaty forces of one of the great figures of Sinn Fein, the pro-Treaty political and military leader, Michael Collins. He'd recorded in his diary, after accepting the Treaty in the negotiations with Britain, that he'd signed his death warrant. So it proved. The Irish violence even spilled over into a high-profile murder in Britain, for which the government's Irish policies were blamed. On top of that came a scandal over the Lloyd George was shamelessly selling titles of nobility to get himself a political war chest. What he was doing wasn't illegal at the time, and since he had no party behind him to raise money or run campaigns, he chose this short cut to financing his political work. That, however, did him no favour among Conservatives becoming increasingly disenchanted with him and wondering why, with a majority of their own in the House of Commons, they still had to rally behind a Liberal as Prime Minister. Wasn't it time to break with him and with his coalition and prepare to form a government of their own again? Top Tories holding positions in his government remained true to the coalition and to him. But their rank and file was running out of patience. And that spelled nothing good for Lloyd George. Illustration: Michael Collins addressing a crowd on St Patrick's Day, 1922, less than half a year before his death. Public domain photo Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Would Britain go to war in Ireland? Was military action its only available response to the republican party, Sinn Fein, and its determination to govern an independent nation from its own parliament, the Dáil? And, indeed, was it in Britain's power to go for that option? At first, that certainly seemed to be the way things were heading. Attacks by IRA units against the police or army led to increasingly brutal reprisals by the British authorities, using the notorious Black and Tans or the Auxies, as well as soldiers. Two of the most shocking events were the firing on the crowd at a Gaelic Football stadium on ‘Bloody Sunday', 21 November 1920, and the burning of Cork the following month. In the end though, the Lloyd Government had to decide that it lacked either the strength or the stomach to force the Irish to bow to their rule. The earlier decision never to negotiate with terrorists had to be dropped and, in the summer and autumn of 1921, discussions finally led to what Lloyd George believed was a triumph of his negotiating skills. He won the agreement of leading Sinn Fein men to a Peace Treaty that partitioned Ireland, hiving off the six Protestant-majority counties of the North which would remain inside the United Kingdom, while the other 26 would form a new Dominion, the Irish Free State, within the British Empire. It seemed like a triumph for him. But that feeling wasn't going to last long. Illustration: Workers clearing rubble on St Patrick's Street in Cork after the fires (detail). National Library of Ireland on The Commons @Flickr Commons Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

We saw last week that Britain wasn't in any fit state to go fighting more wars in 1919. Having got out of the bloodiest war in history (up to then), a deep war-weariness had set in amongst the combatants, and no one felt up to more fighting. The British economy too was in no state to stand another war, what with Britain heavily in debt, to the point where its status as the banker to the world was now swiftly going down the pan. Indeed, the country taking over that role, the United States, was the very country to which a quarter of Britain's war debt was due. Everything was made much worse by the fact that war seemed to be brewing in every direction. The very collapse of the Empires defeated in the Great War – the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman – had produced a different and highly unstable constellation of potentially conflicting nations. For Britain, one of the areas where war most threatened, was on its very doorstep – in Ireland. A subject we'll pick up next week. Illustration: Woodrow Wilson, US President who dreamed up the League of Nations but couldn't get his own nation to join. Public domain. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

At the end of the First World War, a devastating worldwide flu pandemic killed perhaps as many as 50-100 million around the globe, and even 228,000 in Britain. That was a cruel addition to the 880,000 lost to the war itself. Despite that blow, Lloyd George's government did what it could to realise its objective of making Britain a ‘land fit for heroes'. That meant moving on with the programme of social reforms he'd already launched before the war. He made considerable progress in health, education, pensions and housing. However, Lloyd George was a Liberal Prime Minister in a Tory-dominated government. That imposed serious limitations on how far he could take a radical programme. This was made worse by the economic downturn that hit the world economy in 1920. The Conservatives, never very keen on all this social radicalism, became increasingly concerned about Lloyd George when economic conditions it more difficult than ever to finance the kind of public spending that his reforms required. The Prime Minister, coming under growing pressure from his Conservative partners, tried to placate them by dumping a Minister most associated with this high spending, even though he was an important ally to him. Christopher Addison, perhaps the most distinguished medic ever to become a Member of the British Parliament, was driven from his position and soon afterwards resigned. Something similar happened with Edwin Montagu who, as Secretary of State for India, had begun to introduce a programme of political reform there. Confused and far too limited, it was still a well-intentioned initiative, hated by the arch-imperialists, such as the Conservative MPs who had backed General Dyer, the man responsible for the Amritsar massacre. Eventually, Montagu too had to go. The trouble was that throwing raw allies to the Tory so-called diehards in this way didn't blunt their growing opposition to him. It did, however, deprive him of much-needed support. Illustration: Christopher Addison in 18917, by Walter Stoneman, National Portrait Gallery x67932 (left), and Edwin Montagu, public domain. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Rudyard Kipling's poem, The White Man's Burden, is a song of praise to the selflessness of the white man who goes out to the lands of benighted savages and gives them the benefits of his wisdom and kind, if stern, governance to protect them from their own savagery. Sadly, when we take a closer look at imperialism, we find a rather different picture. That's anyone's imperialism and not just the British version. This episode looks at the impact of the Spanish and Portuguese in what would become Latin America, as well as the US in the Philippines (powerfully denounced by Mark Twain). But it concludes in India, and the incident that became the turning point for Indian political leaders, previously loyal to the Empire, but convinced by that innocent that British rule had to be ended. One of the key aspects of that incident, an obscene massacre followed by further severe oppression, was that the perpetrator faced little sanction in Britain, while the victims in India received little help. It's no surprise that the stark contrast caused faith in British fair play to crumble. The growing resistance to British power wasn't the reaction the perpetrators had hoped for, but it's the reaction they should have expected. Illustration: Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Ghandi. Public domain. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.