In politics, guts is all.
And that will increasingly dawn on people. The demand for controlling the commanding heights will grow.
Another example of that was that even during the economic problems of the 1945 government, we managed to carry out other aspects of our policy and other ideals. Through the establishment of national parks, for instance.
You see, another reason for nationalization was that private ownership meant fragmentation.
I remember a big meeting with the hosiery trade in Harold's ministerial room.
Why not pool your resources? And so we broke into the concept of the sacredness of private property.
Then, with lots of people doing that without ever looking over their shoulders to see how they were affecting anybody else, it couldn't work, and it didn't work, and it just came to a standstill.
It is true that they paid much more attention to the trade unions because the trade unions were after all speaking for the rights and conditions of working men and women in their employment.
There was no welfare state, and people had to rely mainly on the Poor Law - that was all the state provided. It was very degrading, very humiliating. And there was a means test for receiving poor relief.
