Here’s one for the aficionados: 26 July 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of Labour’s landslide victory in the 1945 general election.
Trade unionists and Labour MPs are celebrating, claiming the nation still owes a debt of gratitude for the historic achievements of Clement Attlee’s government.
Yet today, as the world watches the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with horror, it’s worth recalling that one of Attlee’s biggest failures was his Israel–Palestine policy.
(Oh, and while Attlee’s health minister Aneurin Bevan boasted he “stuffed their mouths with gold” to overcome doctors’ opposition to the NHS, today doctors are on strike over pay again.)
The 1945 election took place on 5 July, the same date Sir Keir Starmer entered 10 Downing Street last year. But with British armed forces still serving overseas in 1945, it took until 26 July to declare the result.
Labour won 393 seats in 1945, compared with 411 last year. But while Sir Keir’s Labour only won 34% of the votes, Mr Attlee won nearly 50%. But then, there was no insurgent Reform UK back then.
Celebrating the 80th anniversary, Joanne Thomas, who became general secretary of the shopworkers’ union Usdaw in April this year, said the Attlee government left a lasting legacy.
“Usdaw’s predecessor unions were proud to play a role in the 1945 election victory and to see 18 of our members elected,” she said.
“Not least a hero of our union ‘Red Ellen’, a fiery trade union organiser who led the Jarrow hunger march and went on to serve as education minister.”
Pic: AP
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