The Spirit of '45

Why did Churchill lose the elections of 1945. Were people simply ungrateful? According to Ken Loach, there were two main reasons. People remembered the misery after WW1 and they had realized that if the state was able to organize the war victory, it should also be able to win victory in peace.

So it came during Clement Attlee; nationalization of health care, of electricity, of the railways, of the coal mines. And at the same time Britain changed into a welfare state.

It's a very effective documentary, but two questions remain unanswered. How was it all financed and why did Churchill come back in 1951? Anyway, it's refreshing to watch how politics once was in charge.

An excellent film in terms of explaining both what the title says, "The Spirit of 1945" leading to the massive victory of the Labour Party in the UK general election of that year and also the roots of that victory. Loach (correctly) goes back to the end of the First World War and how the promises of "A Land fit for Heroes" was betrayed and millions of working men and their families instead spent most of the inter-war years (not just the so-called "Hungry Thirties") living in poverty and destitution. Their children were determined to build a better Britain and, as Loach shows, this feeling was also shared by many people from much wealthier backgrounds as well (in which bodies during the war such as the Army Bureau of Contemporary Affairs also played a significant role). Loach does not shy away from showing the weaknesses of the Labour Government's policies (e.g. very much "top down" and with no trace of the kind of Mitbestimmung which helped to rebuild West German industry in the same period), but he nevertheless paints far too positive a picture of what Attlee's governments actually achieved.

By going straight from this period (1945-51) to the arrival of "the Wicked Witch" (Thatcher) in Downing Street in 1979, he is able to skate right over how much the Labour Government had NOT accomplished and just how rotten much of British industry and society was by the early-/mid-1970s (and which provided the environment in which Thatcher could only have come to power.) The short-sightedness of union leaders, for example, in focusing purely and simply on short-term economic gain for their members and rejecting totally Castle's "In Place of Strife" proposlas plus "holding the public to ransom" on unlimited occasions in the 1960s and 1970s is simply ignored as not fitting in with the polemic.

In conclusion, watch this film to explain why the Labour election landslide happened, but if you want to know "what happened next", watch the 1959 comedy "I'm all right,Jack" as well. For every stalwart nurse and miner shown in Loach's film, there were unfortunately far too many "Fred Kites" leading their unions in the years after Attlee left office as well!

In his varied and multi angled study Ken Loach takes us on a journey back in time laying bare the most fair and socially way of running a country.

Despite the devastation caused by the 6 year World War II, Britain looked back and realised that in the pre-War era although it had the biggest ever empire, the levels of poverty and deprivation were embarrassing.

So, following the end of the War, the country followed ultra socialist policies that improved the quality of life for everyone very dramatically following which the documentary follows the changes in attitudes towards social friendly policies and how they impacted the population indicating how the drive towards ever higher profits is eroding the social fabric of this nation.

A contemplating feast and a nostalgic journey.

Some people have complained that the film is not objective, I think they're missing the point.

The point of this documentary is to capture the essence of that time. What our parents and grandparents had endured and how they faced up to the future with hope for a better world than that passed away with war.

That working together in commonality could build a better world for future generations and they did just that. The achievements of the Atlee government still reverberate down the decades and are with us still.

They did what they did in far harder times than now, are we so useless that we cannot do it?

THE SPIRIT OF 45 goes back to the end of the Second World War to recreate the unique spirit of that era, when it really did seem as if a new order had been set up in Great Britain, one dedicated to everyone working for each other rather than out to make individual profits. Industries were nationalized with the aim of securing viable investment, the National Health Service offered medical care at point of contact for everyone, while the government of the time dedicated itself for everyone rather than simply appealing to rich interests. With the help of archive film plus testimonies from those who were around the period, Ken Loach evokes a unique spirit, one which has not existed either before or after that period.

Within those terms, the film is a nostalgic piece which makes some important points about people's capacity to change things, if they really want to. But unfortunately Loach veers off his theme when he introduces Margaret Thatcher into the proceedings. It is true that she ushered in a new area of capitalism and selling off state industries to the highest bidder, but we have to remember the size of her victories, which suggest that a substantial slice of the working classes actually voted for her, in spite of the fact that she was working against their interests. What the film illustrates above anything else is the limitation of communal activity, especially when voters are swayed by the prospect of increased wealth through private enterprise - for example, by being given the chance to buy their council houses. It might not be ethically fair, especially for those too poor to accomplish this, but people basically think for themselves first and their fellow-citizens later. In a sense we were responsible for creating a capitalist world; Mrs. Thatcher only offered the conditions.

With this in mind, a lot of the second half of THE SPIRIT OF '45 is largely rubbish, the product of a mind that consciously misreads British history and simply blames the government for all of our problems, rather than ourselves. On the other hand I applaud Loach for advocating this view, for it is only by appreciating its limitations that we can understand that we are responsible for our own demise.