Review Spirit of ’45 Labour party victory night 1945
BY SHAUN NOBLE Labour’s greatest achievment
The Spirit of ’45, Ken Loach’s paean of filmatic praise for the rich and much needed raft of social, political and industrial reforms by the Attlee government (1945-51), leaves a warm feeling and will hearten the many Unite members faced with the daunting challenges thrown up by the current crisis of capitalism.
In essence, Loach’s pitch is if we could recapture that elusive spirit, so effervescent, in those grainy black-and-white newsreels of VE Day in Piccadilly Circus and bottle it and transfer it, Tardis style, to 2013, we would be a much better and generous society.
Ken Loach says of his documentary, which splices the film coverage of yesteryear with contemporary accounts of those who participated in building the New Jerusalem: “Generosity, mutual support and co-operation were the watch words of the age. It is time to remember the determination of those who were intent on building a better world.”
And then I thought to myself: Has human nature gone down hill so badly in the last 68 years? Are we more selfish, greedy and generally unpleasant now? Could we not recreate a version of ’45 in 2013?
The reforms of Clement Attlee and his ministers, notably Aneurin Bevin’s magnificent and now-under-threat NHS, were a result of forces that had been building up for the two-
30 uniteWORKS March/April 2013 and-a-half decades before 1945.
These were the desire by working people not to be cheated as was the case after the First World War and the Total War socialisation of British society under Churchill’s wartime coalition as the only way to mobilise the forces necessary to defeat Hitler.
Attlee, as deputy prime minister, had effectively been in charge of the home front since 1940, while Churchill concerned himself with global political and military affairs. The Spirit of ’45 was not a phoenix that sprung forth in the throes of victory – it had been long in gestation.
Loach weaves a compelling narrative using film from Britain’s regional and national archives, alongside sound recordings and contemporary interviews from the people who lived through the years of change
The Spirit of ’45 is a passionate reaffirmation of why the welfare state was vitally necessary and the achievements in public health it so quickly generated. It is also very good on why we needed to have a nationalised railway system, which generated great pride from the workforce in its unified system, devoid of the current profit hungry private companies.
• On release – The Spirit of ’45 is in cinemas from March 15
People’s History Museum
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