75 years ago today, this was the headline of the Evening Standard - as Clement Attlee's Labour won the 1945 general election by a landslide

"From the start the strong swing towards Socialism was clear ..."

They won on a manifesto that said:

"The future will not be easy. But this time the peace must be won. The Labour Party offers the nation a plan which will win the Peace for the People."

They sought to claim the future, and had a clear analysis of the past ...

"The great inter-war slumps were not acts of God or of blind forces. They were the sure and certain result of the concentration of too much economic power in the hands of too few men."

Public ownership was about redistributing wealth and power ...

They inherited huge wartime debt (c.200% of GDP, twice the debt we have today)

But they didn't see that as a reason for caution.

On the contrary it was a reason to be bold:
To establish the NHS
To create the welfare state
To build council housing
To nationalise industry

Tony Benn first became a Labour MP in the 1950 election under Attlee.

Benn described the effect of socialist government as:

"Democracy transferred power from the wallet to the ballot ... what people couldn't afford they could vote for instead"