Austerity Britain, 1945-51

by David Kynaston

The Appointed Day itself was littered with claims and warnings. ‘We are leading the whole world in Social Security,’ boasted the Daily Mirror, adding: ‘Our State belongs to the people – unlike so many countries where the people belong to the State – and Social Security converts our democratic ideal into human reality.’ The Times wondered whether the next generation would be able to ‘reap the benefits of a social service State while avoiding the perils of a Santa Claus State’ but insisted that ‘it would be a grave mistake to overlook the deep feelings and sense of purpose and common humanity which all the new social services are trying, however imperfectly, to express.’ A surprisingly sour note came from the Manchester Guardian, which – true to its nineteenth-century laissez-faire roots – feared that the state provision of welfare