The most important political developments in Britain during the Second World War followed the formation of a new coalition government under Winston Churchill in May 1940. This coalition replaced the Conservative-dominated national government which had been in power since 1931, thereby ending a decade of Conservative ascendancy. Labour returned to a share in government with fewer posts than the Conserva­tives, but historians have shown that the party used its place in the coalition to reshape the domestic agenda of British politics. At the administrative level, the functions of government simply grew to meet the demands of ‘total war’.

The staff of central government almost doubled in wartime and new methods of economic management, industrial organization and public administration were used, some of which lasted into the post-war period. At the popular level, the common experience of war was seen by commentators to have promoted a new set of political values. It is generally agreed that the wartime ‘swing to the left’ contributed to the election of the first majority Labour government in 1945; as will be shown, however, the debate continues about the strength, timing and ideological content of this shift in political opinion. More controversial still is the thesis that cross-party co-operation in wartime gave rise to a political consensus, characterized by policy convergence on areas such as welfare reform, the operation of a mixed economy, conciliation of the trade unions and a commitment to full employment.

This topic will assess the political impact of the war, both at Westminster and in terms of popular attitudes. First, though, a brief discussion is required of high politics in the immediate pre-war period and the factors which led to the replacement of Chamberlain’s government with Churchill’s coalition. The declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939 was announced by Neville Chamberlain, a forceful if uncharismatic Conservative politician who succeeded Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister in May 1937. Chamberlain’s arrival at the top of the political hierarchy coincided with an acceleration in Britain’s recover)’ from the deep and prolonged depression which had scarred parts of the country during the inter-war years. He could claim some credit for this as a former Chancellor in a government which combined low interest rates, a managed exchange rate, balanced budgets or at worst modest budget deficits cautious social reform and limited state intervention in industry to ease recovery. As Prime Minister, though, Chamberlain’s attention was diverted away from the domestic issues which had preoccupied him at the Treasury and towards the sphere of interna­tional diplomacy. Germany had never been reconciled to the punitive conditions and territorial losses imposed in 1919 after its defeat in the First World War. When Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party came to power in 1933 there was no longer any doubt that Germany was prepared to use force to secure a revision of the post-war settlement in its favor.

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