Sir Anthony EdenForeign Secretary and resignation 1935 - 38Eden became Foreign Secretary at a time when Britain was having to adjust its foreign policy to face the rise of the fascist powers. His resignation in February 1938 was largely attributed to growing dissatisfaction with Chamberlain`s policy of Appeasement. He maintained a low profile, avoiding confrontation, though he opposed the Munich Agreement and abstained in the vote on it in the House of Commons.In September 1939, on the outbreak of war, Eden, who had briefly rejoined the army with the rank of major, returned to Chamberlain's government asSecretary of State for Dominion Affairs, but was not in the War Cabinet. As a result, he was not a candidate for the Premiership when Chamberlain resigned after Germany invaded France in May 1940 and Churchill became Prime Minister. Churchill appointed Eden Secretary of State for War.His role in wartime was restricted because Churchill conducted the most important negotiations, with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin.

The opposition yearsAfter the Labour Party won the 1945 elections, Eden went into opposition as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party.Churchill was in many ways only "part-time Leader of the Opposition", given his many journeys abroad and his literary work, and left the day-to-day-work largely to Eden. Eden was largely regarded as lacking sense of party politics and contact with the common man.

Return to government (1951–55)In 1951, the Conservatives returned to office and Eden became Foreign Secretary for a third time. Churchill was largely a figurehead in this government, and Eden had an effective control of British foreign policy for the first time, as the Empire declined and the Cold War grew more intense.

Prime MinisterIn April 1955 Churchill finally retired, and Eden succeeded him as Prime Minister. He was a very popular figure, as a result of his long wartime service and his famous good looks and charm. His famous words "Peace comes first, always" added to his already substantial popularity.On taking office he immediately called a general election for 27 May 1955, at which he increased the Conservative majority from seventeen to sixty. But Eden had never held a domestic portfolio and had little experience in economic matters. He left these areas to his lieutenants such as Rab Butler, and concentrated largely on foreign policy, forming a close relationship with U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. Eden's attempts to maintain overall control of the Foreign Office drew widespread criticism.

Rejected plan for union between Britain and FranceBritish Government cabinet papers from September 1956, during Eden's term as Prime Minister, have shown that French Prime Minister Guy Mollet approached the British Government suggesting the idea of an economic and political union between France and Great Britain. This was a similar offer, in reverse, to that made by Churchill (drawing on a plan devised by Leo Amery) in June 1940.The offer by Guy Mollet was referred to by Sir John Colville, Churchill's former private secretary, in his collected diaries, The Fringes of Power (1985), his having gleaned the information in 1957 from Air Chief Marshal Sir William Dickson during an air flight (and, according to Colville, after several whiskies and soda).Mollet's request for Union with Britain was rejected by Eden, but the additional possibility of France joining the British Commonwealth was considered, although similarly rejected. Colville noted, in respect of Suez, that Eden and his Foreign SecretarySelwyn Lloyd "felt still more beholden to the French on account of this offer".

Harold MacmillanMacmillan achieved notoriety before the Second World War as a Tory radical and critic of appeasement. Rising to high office as a protégé of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he believed in the essential decency of the post-war settlement and the necessity of a mixed economy, and in his premiership pursuedcorporatist policies to develop the domestic market as the engine of growth.Haunted by memories of the Great Depression, he championed a Keynesian strategy of public investment to maintain demand.Winning a second term in 1959 on an electioneering budget. Benefiting from favourable international conditions,[3] he presided over an age of affluence, marked by low unemployment and high if uneven growth. In his Bedford speech of July 1957 he told the nation they had 'never had it so good',[4] but warned of the dangers of inflation, summing up the fragile prosperity of the 1950s.

In international affairs Macmillan rebuilt the special relationship with the United States from the wreckage of the Suez Crisis, and redrew the world map by decolonising sub-Saharan Africa. He sought a new role for Britain in Europe, but his unwillingness to disclose United States nuclear secrets to France contributed to a French veto of the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic CommunityHousing Minister (1951–1954)With the Conservative victory in 1951 Macmillan became Minister of Housing under Churchill, who entrusted Macmillan with fulfilling the latter's conference promise to build 300,000 houses per year. 'It is a gamble—it will make or mar your political career,' Churchill said, 'but every humble home will bless your name if you succeed.'[36] Macmillan achieved the target a year ahead of scheduleDefence Minister (1954–1955)Macmillan served as Minister of Defence from October 1954, but found his authority restricted by Churchill's personal involvemenForeign Secretary (1955)Macmillan served as Foreign Secretary in April–December 1955 in the government of Anthony EdenChancellor of the Exchequer (1955–1957)Macmillan served as Chancellor of the Exchequer 1955–1957.First government (1957–1959)Anthony Eden resigned in January 1957. At that time the Conservative Party had no formal mechanism for selecting a new leader, effectively leaving the choice of the new leader, and Prime Minister, in the hands of the Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen appointed Macmillan Prime Minister after taking advice from Winston Churchill and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, surprising some observers who expected that Rab Butler would be chosen. The political situation after Suez was so desperate that on taking office on 10 January he told Queen Elizabeth II he could not guarantee his government would last "six weeks".EconomyMacmillan brought the monetary concerns of the Exchequer into office; the economy was his prime concern. His One Nation approach to the economy was to seek high or full employment. This contrasted with his mainly monetarist Treasury ministers who argued that any support of sterling required strict controls on money and hence an unavoidable rise in unemployment. Their advice was rejected and in January 1958 the three Treasury ministers Peter Thorneycroft, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Birch, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and Enoch Powell, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, resigned. Macmillan, away on a tour of the Commonwealth, brushed aside this incident as 'a little local difficulty'.

Foreign policyMacmillan took close control of foreign policy.In February 1959 Macmillan became the first Western leader to visit the Soviet Union since the Second World War.[49] Talks with Nikita Khrushchev eased tensions in East-West relations over West Berlin and led to an agreement in principle to stop nuclear tests and to hold a further summit meeting of  Allied and Soviet heads of government.

Nuclear deterrentIn April 1957 Macmillan reaffirmed his strong support for the British nuclear deterrent. A succession of prime ministers since the Second World War had been determined to persuade the United States to revivewartime co-operation in the area of nuclear weapons research. Macmillan believed that one way to encourage such co-operation would be for the United Kingdom to speed up the development of its ownhydrogen bomb, which was successfully tested on 8 November 1957.

Election campaign (1959)Macmillan led the Conservatives to victory in the October 1959 general election, increasing his party's majority from 67 to 107 seats. The successful campaign was based on the economic improvements achieved; the slogan "Life's Better Under the Conservatives" was matched by Macmillan's own remark, '"indeed let us be frank about it — most of our people have never had it so goodSecond government (1959–1963)

EconomyBritain's balance of payments problems led to the imposition of a wage freeze in 1961 and, amongst other factors, this caused the government to lose popularity and a series of by-elections in March 1962.

Fearing for his own position, Macmillan organised a major Cabinet change in July 1962—also named 'the night of long knives' as a symbol of his alleged betrayal of the Conservative party. Eight junior Ministers were sacked at the same time. The Cabinet changes were widely seen as a sign of panic, and the young Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe said of Macmillan's dismissal of so many of his colleagues, 'greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life'.Macmillan supported the creation of the National Incomes Commission as a means to institute controls on income as part of his growth-without-inflation policy. A further series of subtle indicators and controls were also introduced during his premiership.

Foreign policyThe special relationship with the United States continued after the election of President John F. Kennedy, whose sister had married a nephew of Macmillan's wife. The Prime Minister was supportive throughout the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and Kennedy consulted him by telephone every day. Macmillan's first government had seen the first phase of the sub-Saharan African independence movement, which accelerated under his second government. His celebrated 'wind of change' speech in Cape Town on his African tour in February 1960 is considered a landmark in the process of decolonisation.Nigeria, the Southern Cameroons and British Somaliland were granted independence in 1960, Sierra Leone and Tanganyika in 1961, Uganda in 1962, and Kenya in 1963. Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1963.

EuropeMacmillan worked with states outside the European Economic Community (EEC) to form the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which from 3 May 1960 established a free-trade area between the member countries. Macmillan also saw the value of rapprochement with the EEC, to which his government sought belated entry. In the event, Britain's application to join was vetoed by French president Charles de Gaulle on 29 January 1963, in part due to de Gaulle's fear that 'the end would be a colossal Atlantic Community dependent on America', and in part in anger at the Anglo-American nuclear deal, from which France, technologically lagging far behind, had been excluded

Hugh GaitskellHeld Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Partyand Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.Chancellor of the Exchequer 1950-51His time as Chancellor was dominated by the struggle to finance Britain's part in the Korean War which put enormous strain on public finances. The cost of the war meant that savings had to be found from other budgets. Gaitskell's budget of 1951 introduced charges for prescriptions on the National Health Service.Leader of the opposition 1955-63He later defeated Bevan in the contest to be the party treasurer. After the retirement of Clement Attlee as leader in December 1955, Gaitskell beat Bevan and the ageing Herbert Morrison in the party leadership contest.

Gaitskell's election as leader coincided with one of the Labour Party's weakest periods, which can be partly attributed to the post-war prosperity that Britain was experiencing under the Conservatives. His time as leader was also characterised by factional infighting between the 'Bevanite' left of the Labour party led by Aneurin Bevan, and the 'Gaitskellite' right.The Labour Party had been widely expected to win the 1959 general election, but did not. Gaitskell was undermined during it by public doubts concerning the credibility of proposals to raise pensions and by a highly effective Conservative campaign run by Harold Macmillan under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it".Following the election defeat, bitter internecine disputes resumed. Gaitskell blamed the Left for the defeat and attempted unsuccessfully to amend Labour's Clause IV -- which committed the party to massive nationalisation of industry.

Battles inside the party produced the Campaign for Democratic Socialism to defend the Gaitskellite position in the early 1960s. Many of the younger CDS members were founding members of the SDP in 1981. Gaitskell alienated some of his supporters by his apparent opposition to British membership of the European Economic Community. In a speech to the party conference in October 1962 Gaitskell claimed that Britain's participation in a Federal Europe would mean "the end of Britain as an independent European state, the end of a thousand years of history!"[3] He added: "You may say, all right! Let it end! But, my goodness, it's a decision that needs a little care and thought.

His death left an opening for Harold Wilson in the party leadership.

Legacy

Because he never became prime minister, and because of the great capacity many considered that he had for the post, Hugh Gaitskell is remembered largely with respect from people both within and outside of the Labour Party. Gaitskell is regarded by some as "the best Prime Minister we never had".

Aneurin Bevan

Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of coal miners, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people. became recognised as one of the leaders of the party’s left wing, and of left-wing British thought generally. His most famous accomplishment came when, as Minister of Health in the post-war Attlee government, he spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service, which provides free medical care to all Britons.

In Parliament he soon became noticed as a harsh critic of those he felt opposed the working man. His targets included the Conservative Winston Churchill and the Liberal David Lloyd George, as well as Ramsay MacDonald and Margaret Bondfield from his own Labour party (he targeted the latter for her unwillingness to increase unemployment benefits). 

Aneurin Bevan joined the Tredegar branch of the South Wales Miners' Federation and became a trade union activist: he was head of his local Miners' Lodge at only 19. Bevan became a well-known local orator and was seen by his employers, the Tredegar Iron & Coal Company, as a revolutionary. The manager of the colliery found an excuse to get him sacked. But, with the support of the Miners' Federation, the case was judged as one of victimisation and the company was forced to re-employ him

Soon after he entered parliament Bevan was briefly attracted to Oswald Mosley's arguments, in the context of Macdonald's government's incompetent handling of rising unemployment. However, in the words of his biographer John Campbell, "he breached with Mosley as soon as Mosley breached with the Labour Party".

He was a strong critic of the policies of Neville Chamberlain, arguing that his old enemy Winston Churchill should be given power. Bevan called for the nationalisation of the coal industry.

The 1945 General Election proved to be a landslide victory for the Labour Party, giving it a large enough majority to allow the implementation of the party's manifesto commitments and to introduce a programme of far-reaching social reforms that were collectively dubbed the 'Welfare State'

The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed Aneurin Bevan as Minister of Health, with a remit that also covered Housing. Thus, the responsibility for instituting a new and comprehensive National Health Service, as well as tackling the country's severe post-war housing shortage, fell to the youngest member of Attlee's Cabinet in his first ministerial position. The free health service was paid for directly through public money. Government income was increased for the Welfare state expenditure by a severe increase in marginal tax rates for wealthy business owners in particular, as part of what the Labour government largely saw as the redistribution of the wealth created by the working class from the owners of large-scale industry to the workers.

The collective principle asserts that... no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.

The OppositionOut of office, Bevan soon initiated a split within the Labour Party between the right and the left. For the next five years, Bevan was the leader of the left-wing of the Labour Party, who became known asBevanites. They criticised high defence expenditure (especially for nuclear weapons).After the 1955 general election, Attlee retired as leader. Bevan contested the leadership against both Morrison and Labour right-winger Hugh Gaitskell, but it was Gaitskell who emerged victorious.