The General Election of 1945 - Professor Vernon Bogdanor

[@tubularbill]

I love these lectures. What a treasure to have them on KZbin. Thank you Gresham College for making them public.

[@mjatlee6306]

As an American, I have always found British politics to be rich in debate and substance. The professor’s lectures are a true aid to understanding the events and times. Thank you ever so much.

[@wessexfox5197]

Would love to hear a lecture of this quality on the 1931 and 1906 elections. They’re two of the most fascinating ones that never get any mention in the annals of political history.

[@Laurencemardon]

Aha! Another series of lectures from Prof. Bogdanor ... excellent !

[@lordhighexecutioner]

27:18 : " I think now if we saw an opinion poll that put one party 20% ahead of another five months before the election we would say that the opposition had no chance ..."

[@ian_b]

"My wife drove me to the Palace and waited for me outside". It is hard to think of anything that would make one more nostalgic for (the mythical) "simpler times".

[@aquin559]

Thoroughly enjoyable and informative. Thank you.

[@atwali]

Professor Bogdanor is like a poppy growing on the bomb site that is KZbin, thanks Prof. and GC.

[@AndyWhite-f9c]

Churchill initiated universal healthcare not realising people would not go back to the old ways. Plus the British people were savvy enough to say Churchill was a war leader so when the war ended he was no longer required. There was a new war on poverty ,health and unemployment that the people demanded that the were addressed.

[@Nounismisation]

What nutjobs gave this a thumbsdown?!

[@j0hnc00]

Somebody with strange specific expectations that weren't met

[@garyjohnson4778]

Well the guy above for a start, lol.

[@Jodonho]

As an observer of American politics, I can say that early polls do not predict electoral outcomes. Early polls reflect name recognition more than anything else. Everyone has heard of Churchill, but few have heard of Attlee. As the race went on, that would change.

[@rah62]

No one had heard of Attlee? Baloney. He had been in Parliament since 1922, had been Leader of the Labour Party since 1935, and had been Deputy Prime Minister from 1942. He was *very* well known.

[@johnjones6601]

To be middle of the road is to get hit from both sides.

[@hodderpaul]

Churchill was an aristocratic anachronism. He represented a return to the status quo after two world wars. He didn't live in a slum himself of course but insisted that others continue to do so.

[@robin231176]

"We British don't generally muddle through"..unfortunately that is what the British nearly always do as can be evidenced by the current bungling in the coronavirus crisis - keystone cops.

[@MrDavey2010]

Terrific lecture. Boring delivery but content superb.

[@daveblack1854]

Further to Professor Bogdanor's lecture on the General Election of 1945. I add the observations of growing to maturity over the 8 decades of my lifetime from the 1930s/ to the present:When experiments with Fabian Socialist ideals, entirely vindicated Sir Winston Churchill's postwar warnings, on the dire consequences of adopting such doctrine. The Lost Decades 45/52 64/79 97/2015: Would that we had not dallied with Socialism in 1945, which inevitably led to it being dismantled, but more than 25 years later. To the extent that the only way history can record this period is as the Lost Years of 3 decades. But still we did not learn the lessons of history as applied to Labour's brand of Fabian Socialism and a further Labour landslide 3 decades later meant 3 more decades surrendered to Socialist Doctrine which again needs to be dismantled in supplication to the St Wilibrod's March. This is an annual event that take place in the town of Enternach in Luxembourg where the population proceed through the town centre by taking two steps forward and one step backwards. Oh what a tangled web we weave when we allow these Fabian Socialists practices to deceive.

[@zeddeka]

I think you're being massively selective with history. The history of British politics over the past century (if not earlier), whether conservative or labour, has largely been one of failure. We have fundamentally failed to come to terms with the fact that we are no longer an imperial power, or fully made the adjustments to our society that this change in circumstances demands. We have bumbled along over the decades from one consumer boom and bust to another, all fueled by borrowing of one kind of another, whether personal debt or government borrowing. All the while, we have avoided facing the fundamental problems we face.

[@rah62]

An incredibly ungrateful electorate in 1945.

[@italianbeans877]

Ungrateful? It was the people, not the government, which made the war a success.

[@jreiland07]

Dumbest thing I’ve read on KZbin this month.

[@SeiiTaiShogun1]

Britain's biggest mistake was fighting Germany over Poland at all; the 1939 Ultimatum from Chamberlain turned a useless, and MONUMENTAL storm in a teacup into an unwinnable maelstrom against a Leviathan (the Mighty Wehrmacht) who didn't want to fight anyone west of the Vistula, and that just to reunite it's own country and eliminate the corridor! I'm no Hitlerite, but it was the wrong fight for the wrong reason on 01.IX.1939! Then look what the win cost Britain! Her position at the top of the world, and the rise of America as the world's nuclear police. Well done...