---
election_year: 1951
party_id: conservative
party_name: Conservative and Unionist Party
party_leader: Winston Churchill
political_spectrum: centre-right
victory: true
government_outcome: majority
sections:
  - economy
  - taxation
  - housing
  - defence
  - foreign-policy
  - democracy-and-constitution
  - agriculture
---

# Conservative Party Manifesto 1951

We are confronted with a critical Election which may well be the turning point in the
fortunes and even the life of Britain. We cannot go on with this evenly balanced Party
strife and hold our own in the world, or even earn our living. The prime need is for a stable
government with several years before it, during which time national interests must be
faithfully held far above party feuds or tactics. We need a new Government not biased by
privilege or interest or cramped by doctrinal prejudices or inflamed by the passions of class
warfare. Such a Government only the Conservative and Unionist Party can to-day provide.

There must be no illusions about our difficulties and dangers. It is better to face them
squarely as we did in 1940. The Conservative Party, who since victory have had no
responsibility for the events which have led us to where we are now, offers no bribes to the
electors. We will do our best to serve them and to make things better all round, but we do
not blind ourselves to the difficulties that have to be overcome, or the time that will be
required to bring us back to our rightful position in the world, and to revive the vigour
of our national life and impulse.

We all seek and pray for peace. A mighty union of nations tread that path together, but we
all know that peace can only come through their united strength and faithful brotherhood.

Contrast our position to-day with what it was six years ago. Then all our foes had yielded.
We all had a right to believe and hope that the fear of war would not afflict our generation
nor our children. We were respected, honoured and admired throughout the world. We were a
united people at home, and it was only by being united that we had survived the deadly
perils through which we had come and had kept the flag of freedom flying through the
fateful year when we were alone. There, at any rate, is a great foundation and inspiration.
Everyone knows how the aftermath of war brings extraordinary difficulties. With national
unity we could have overcome them. But what has happened since those days?

The attempt to impose a doctrinaire Socialism upon an Island which has grown great and famous
by free enterprise has inflicted serious injury upon our strength and prosperity.
Nationalisation has proved itself a failure which has resulted in heavy losses to the
taxpayer or the consumer, or both. It has not given general satisfaction to the wage-earners
in the nationalised industries. It has impaired the relations of the Trade Unions with their
members. In more than one nationalised industry the wage-earners are ill-content with the
change from the private employers, with whom they could negotiate on equal terms through
the Trade Unions, to the all-powerful and remote officials in Whitehall.

Our finances have been brought into grave disorder. No British Government in peace time has
ever had the power or spent the money in the vast extent and reckless manner of our present
rulers. Apart from the two thousand millions they have borrowed or obtained from the United
States and the Dominions, they have spent more than 10 million pounds a day, or 22 thousand
millions in their six years. No community living in a world of competing nations can possibly
afford such frantic extravagances. Devaluation was the offspring of wild, profuse expenditure,
and the evils which we suffer to-day are the inevitable progeny of that wanton way of living.

A Conservative Government will cut out all unnecessary Government expenditure, simplify the
administrative machine, and prune waste and extravagance in every department.

The greatest national misfortune which we now endure is the ever falling value of our money,
or, to put it in other words, the ever-increasing cost, measured in work and skill, of
everything we buy. British taxation is higher than in any country outside the Communist world.
It is higher by eight hundred millions a year than it was in the height of the war. We have
a population of fifty millions depending on imports of food and raw materials which we have
to win by our exertions, ingenuity, and craftsmanship. Since Devaluation it takes nearly
twelve hours of work with hands or brains to buy across the dollar exchange what we could
have got before for eight hours. We have now to give from one-quarter to one-third more of
our life's strength, skill and output of every kind and quality to get the same intake as
we did before Devaluation two years ago. We pay more for what we buy from abroad. we get
less for what we sell. That is what Socialist Devaluation has meant. This costly expedient
has not prevented a new financial crisis.

We are a hard working people. We are second to none in ability or enterprise so far as we
are allowed to use these gifts. We now have the only Socialist Government in the Empire and
Commonwealth. Of all the countries in the world Britain is the one least capable of bearing
the Socialist system.

The Nation now has the chance of rebuilding its life at home and of strengthening its
position abroad. We must free ourselves from our impediments. Of all impediments the class
war is the worst. At the time when a growing measure of national unity is more than ever
necessary, the Socialist Party hope to gain another lease of power by fomenting class hatred
and appealing to moods of greed and envy.

Within the limits of a statement of this kind, it is only possible to deal with some of the
main questions now before us. We wish to be judged by deeds and their results and not by
words and their applause. We seek to proclaim a theme, rather than write a prospectus. Many
years ago I used the phrase, "Bring the rearguard in." This meant basic standards
of life and labour, the duty of the strong to help the weak, and of the successful to
establish tolerable conditions for the less fortunate. That policy is adopted by all Parties
to-day. But now we have the new Socialist doctrine. It is no longer, "Bring the
rearguard in," but "Keep the vanguard back." There is no means by which this
Island can support its present population except by allowing its native genius to flourish
and fructify. We cannot possibly keep ourselves alive without the individual effort,
invention, contrivance, thrift and good housekeeping of our people.

In 1945 I said:

"What we desire is freedom; what we need is abundance. Freedom and abundance - these
must be our aims. The production of new wealth is far more beneficial than class and Party
fights about the liquidation of old wealth. We must try to share blessings and not miseries.
The production of new wealth must precede common wealth, otherwise there will only be common
poverty.

It is because these simple truths have been denied and our people duped by idle hopes and
false doctrine that the value of our money has fallen so grievously and the confidence of
the world in Britain has been impaired. Confidence and currency are interdependent and
restoring confidence by sound finance is one of the ways in which the value of our money
may be sustained and the rising cost of living checked.

The Conservative aim is to increase our national output. Here is the surest way to keep our
people fully employed, to halt the rising cost of living, and to preserve our social
services. Hard work, good management, thrift - all must receive their due incentive and
reward.

In the wider world outside this Island we put first the safety, progress and cohesion of the
British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations. We must all stand together and help each other
with all our strength both in Defence and Trade. To foster commerce within the Empire we
shall maintain Imperial Preference. In our home market the Empire producer will have a place
second only to the home producer.

Next, there is the unity of the English-speaking peoples who together number hundreds of
millions. They have only to act in harmony to preserve their own freedom and the general
peace.

On these solid foundations we should all continue to labour for a United Europe, including
in the course of time those unhappy countries still behind the Iron Curtain.

These are the three pillars of the United Nations Organisation which, if Soviet Russia
becomes the fourth, would open to all the toiling millions of the world an era of moral and
material advance undreamed of hitherto among men. There was a time in our hour of victory
when this object seemed to be within our reach. Even now, in spite of the clouds and
confusion into which we have since fallen, we must not abandon the supreme hope and design.

For all these purposes we support the Rearmament programme on which the Socialist Government
have embarked. We believe however that far better value could be got for the immense
manpower and sums of money which are involved. Special sacrifices are required from us all
for the sake of our survival as free democratic communities and the prevention of war.

Our theme is that in normal times there should be the freest competition and that good
wages and profits fairly earned under the law are a public gain both to the Nation and to
all in industry-management and wage-earner alike. But the vast Rearmament policy of spending
five thousand millions in three years on Defence inevitably distorts the ordinary working of
supply and demand, therefore justice requires special arrangements for the emergency. We
shall set our face against the fortuitous rise in company profits because of the abnormal
process of Rearmament. We shall accordingly impose a form of Excess Profits Tax to operate
only during this exceptional period.

At the same time a revision of the existing system of taxation on commercial and industrial
profits is required. Relief will be given in cases where profits are ploughed back and
used for the renewal of plant and equipment.

We believe in the necessity for reducing to the minimum possible all restrictive practices
on both sides of industry, and we shall rely on a greatly strengthened Monopolies
Commission to seek, and enable Parliament to correct, any operations in restraint of trade,
including of course in the nationalised industries.

I will now mention some other practical steps we shall take.

We shall stop all further nationalisation.

The Iron and Steel Act will be repealed and the Steel industry allowed to resume its
achievements of the war and post-war years. To supervise prices and development we shall
revive, if necessary with added powers, the former Iron and Steel Board representing the
State, the management, labour, and consumers.

Publicly-owned rail and road transport will be reorganised into regional groups of workable
size. Private road hauliers will be given the chance to return to business, and private
lorries will no longer be crippled by the twenty-five mile limit.

Coal will remain nationalised. There will be more decentralisation snd stimulation of local
initiative and loyalties, but wage negotiations will remain on a national basis.

All industries remaining nationalised will come within the purview of the Monopolies'
Commission and there will also be strict Parliamentary review of their activities.

We seek to create an industrial system that is not only efficient but human. The Conservative
Workers' Charter for Industry will be brought into being as early as possible, and extended
to agriculture wherever practicable. The scheme will be worked out with trade unions and
employers, and then laid before Parliament.

There you have a clear plan of action in this field.

Housing is the first of the social services. It is also one of the keys to increased
productivity. Work, family life, health and education are all undermined by overcrowded
homes. Therefore a Conservative and Unionist Government will give housing a priority second
only to national defence. Our target remains 300,000 houses a year. There should be no
reduction in the number of houses and flats built to let but more freedom must be given to
the private builder. In a property-owning democracy, the more people who own their homes the
better.

In Education and in Health some of the most crying needs are not being met. For the money now
being spent we will provide better services and so fulfil the high hopes we all held when we
planned the improvements during the war.

The whole system of town planning and development charges needs drastic overhaul.

We shall review the position of pensioners, including war pensioners, and see that the
hardest needs are met first. The care and comfort of the elderly is a sacred trust. Some
of them prefer to remain at work and there must be encouragement for them to do so.

To obtain more food practical knowledge and business experience must be released to comb
the world for greater supplies.

We shall maintain our system of guaranteed agricultural prices and markets and protect
British horticulture from foreign dumpers. We have untilled acres and much marginal land.
Farmers and merchants should work together to improve distribution in the interests of the
public.

Subject to the needs of Rearmament, the utmost will be done to provide better housing, water
supplies, and drainage, electricity and transport in rural areas.

The fishing industry will be protected from unrestricted foreign dumping. Every effort will
be made by international agreement to prevent over-fishing.

Food subsidies cannot be radically changed in present circumstances, but later we hope to
simplify the system and by increases in family allowances, taxation changes and other
methods, to ensure that public money is spent on those who need help and not, as at present,
upon all classes indiscriminately.

Apart from proposals to help Britain to stand on her own feet by increasing productivity, we
must guard the British way of life, hallowed by centuries of tradition. We have fought
tyrants at home and abroad to win and preserve the institutions of constitutional Monarchy
and Parliamentary government. From Britain across the generations our message has gone
forth to all parts of the globe. However well-meaning many of the present Socialist leaders
may be, there is no doubt that in its complete development a Socialist State, monopolising
production, distribution and exchange, would be fatal to individual freedom. We look on the
Government as the servant and not as the masters of the people. Multiplying orders and rules
should be reduced, and the whole system kept under more rigorous Parliamentary scrutiny. We
shall call an all-Party conference to consider proposals for the reform of the House of Lords.

We shall restore the University constituencies, which have been disfranchised contrary to the
agreement reached by all three Parties during the war.

The United Kingdom cannot he kept in a Whitehall straitjacket. The Unionist policy for
Scotland, including the practical steps proposed for effective Scottish control of
Scottish affairs, will he vigorously pressed forward.

There will he a Cabinet Minister charged with the care of Welsh affairs,

We shall seek to restore to Local Government the confidence and responsibility it has lost
under Socialism.

All these and other issues of the day can only he stated briefly in our Party Manifesto.
A much fuller account will he given of them in *Britain Strong and Free* which will he
published in a few days.

I close with a simple declaration of our faith. The Conservative and Unionist Party stands
not for any section of the people but for all. In this spirit, we will do our utmost to
grapple with the increasing difficulties into which our country has been plunged.

**Winston Churchill**