A wider democracy, an unstable economy

The First World War reshaped politics almost immediately:

• The Representation of the People Act (1918) gave the vote to all men over 21 and to women over 30 who met a property qualification — trebling the electorate. The Equal Franchise Act (1928) then gave women the vote on the same terms as men, at 21.
• Party realignment: the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the main party of the left, forming minority governments in 1924 and 1929.
• Economic strain: industrial conflict climaxed in the General Strike of 1926. The Great Depression after 1929 brought mass unemployment; the Labour government collapsed and a National Government was formed in 1931. The hated means test and events like the Jarrow March (1936) became symbols of the 'hungry thirties'.

Interpretation warning: the 1930s were not uniformly bleak. Alongside depressed heavy-industry regions, the south and midlands saw new industries, suburban housing and rising living standards for those in work. 'Two Englands' coexisted.

When did women get equal suffrage?

Beveridge, 1945 and the new settlement

The Second World War transformed expectations of the state. The Beveridge Report (1942) identified 'five giants' — Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness — and proposed a comprehensive system of social insurance. It became a runaway bestseller.

• In 1945 Labour won a landslide under Clement Attlee. His government built the welfare state: the National Insurance Act (1946), the nationalisation of key industries, and — the centrepiece — the National Health Service, launched on 5 July 1948 under health minister Aneurin (Nye) Bevan, free at the point of use.
• The arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948, carrying migrants from the Caribbean, is often taken as the symbolic start of large-scale post-war immigration and a more diverse Britain.

Why it matters: the post-war settlement — welfare, full employment and a mixed economy — set the terms of British politics for a generation and lies at the heart of the option's central interpretation debate about 'consensus'.

The centrepiece of 1945-51

Affluence, migration and a permissive society

The 1950s and 1960s brought rising living standards and far-reaching social change:

• Affluence: full employment, consumer goods and home ownership spread. In 1957 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan told voters that most had 'never had it so good'.
• Migration and race: Commonwealth migration grew, met by both new communities and a racial backlash. Parliament restricted entry with the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts (1962 and 1968), while trying to outlaw discrimination through the Race Relations Acts of 1965, 1968 and 1976. In 1968 Enoch Powell's inflammatory 'Rivers of Blood' speech exposed the depth of division.
• The permissive society: a wave of liberal reform — the Abortion Act (1967), the Sexual Offences Act (1967) partially decriminalising male homosexuality, the abolition of capital punishment (1965) and the Divorce Reform Act (1969).

Which phase of transformation?

Tap an event, then the period it belongs to.

The end of the post-war settlement

The 1970s shook the post-war consensus. Inflation, the oil shock, and confrontation with the unions produced the three-day week (1974) and the Winter of Discontent (1978-79), when public-sector strikes brought services to a halt.

• Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979. Her governments pursued monetarism to curb inflation, privatised nationalised industries, sold council houses, and cut the power of the trade unions.
• The defeat of the miners' strike (1984-85) was a decisive symbol of that shift. The unpopular poll tax contributed to her fall in 1990.
• Women's position advanced through the Equal Pay Act (1970) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975), and by 1979 Britain had its first woman Prime Minister — though feminists debated how much had really changed.
• The option ends in 1997 with the landslide election of Tony Blair's New Labour, which accepted much of the Thatcherite economic settlement while restyling the party.

What did Thatcherism change?

Was there a post-war consensus?

The signature debate of this option is whether Britain after 1945 was governed by a genuine cross-party consensus:

Paul Addison, in The Road to 1945 (1975), argued that the Second World War forged a broad agreement between the parties on the welfare state, full employment and a managed, mixed economy — a settlement that shaped politics until the 1970s. Against this, Ben Pimlott (in his essay 'The Myth of Consensus', 1988) argued that the consensus was largely a retrospective illusion: party conflict at the time was real and bitter, and historians had smoothed it into a 'mirage'. A third strand asks whether Thatcherism after 1979 marked the deliberate end of that settlement.

Exam skill: Section C is not about spotting bias. Place each extract in this debate, then test it against evidence — the scale of nationalisation, the persistence of full employment, the rhetoric of 1979 — and reach a supported judgement.

Interpretation to historian

Tap an argument on the left, then the historian or view most associated with it.

Reading the consensus debate

Build the spine of the option

Tap the events in chronological order, earliest first.

How Paper 1 is assessed

Edexcel Paper 1 (option 1H): 2 hours 15 minutes, 60 marks, 30% of the A-level.

• Sections A and B (AO1): a choice of breadth essays on change across 1918-97.
• Section C (AO3): one compulsory question on two historians' interpretations — evaluate how convincing each is.

Note: historians' interpretations (AO3) are examined in Paper 1 and the Coursework. Primary sources (AO2) belong to Paper 2 and Paper 3.

The Windrush moment

The big ideas to carry into the exam

You now have the arc of option 1H and its central Section C debate. Press Finish to see your score.