How Far Do These Sources Support the View That Labour’s Victory in the 1945 General Election Was Due to the Unpopularity of the Conservative Party?

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How far do these sources support the view that Labour’s victory in the 1945 General Election was due to the unpopularity of the Conservative Party? Source 1 supports the view of the Conservatives unpopularity, with Reginald Maudling describing how there was ‘a desire for change’ amongst the people of Britain in 1945 and that the Conservative Party had ‘not much to offer those who wished to see change’. This explains that the Conservatives were out of touch with the general mood of the British people. The source goes on to explain how people ‘distinguished between Churchill the War Leader and the Conservative Party as a peacetime Government’. Likewise in source 2, Attlee emphasises how ‘people wanted a positive new policy’ implemented by the next government, ‘not an attempt to go back to the old’. This further demonstrates how the Conservatives did not fully understand what people wanted in Britain after the war. Source 2 also supports the statement by referring to the poor past record of the Conservatives, with regards to their domestic and foreign policy. In addition to Maudling’s explanation, Attlee explains how people ‘remembered Munich and they remembered pre-war unemployment’ and these events created a negative impression in people’s minds about the Conservative Party acting as a peacetime government. In source 3, Watkins develops this point further by commenting that ‘Britain would not survive the peace with the kind of government it has possessed before the war’. This clearly shows how people realised the Conservatives were not a suitable government maintaining peace in Britain after the war. The view of the Conservatives unpopularity is further supported by Source 1 as despite it being written by an up-and-coming Conservative, his account of the election was witnessed first-hand so may have some weight to historians. Similarly with Source 2, Attlee was
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