Eighty years ago Britain wins one lap of a race it is doomed to lose

 

A specially modified Gloster Meteor  set a new official world speed record of 606mph. There seemed a fitting symmetry in the maker of the RAF's last biplane fighter scoring this triumph with the RAF's first operational jet fighter. The achievement appeared to be a continuation of the way progress in aviation had been measured by such records. It seemed to hold promise for the vast aircraft industry which Britain had built during the war. In reality the commercial battle would be won by size of accessible market and of military purchasing power; the US aviation industry was always going to win. Anyway the German rocket powered Me 163 fighter had already flown faster, making the RAF record doubly irrelevant.

Tito reaped the rewards of his military success in the fight against German occupation and the virtual civil war to which unwavering British support had made a large contribution. His People's Front won 90% of the vote in Yugoslavia's parliamentary elections. It was the only party to stand; the Royalists declined to campaign. There were only 8m voters registered and an unpublished number of "traitors" had been stripped of the vote.

The possibility of another three power conference was being mooted and it was supposed that Attlee, Stalin and Truman were interested but the British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin weighed in with an implicit denunciation of Soviet duplicity. He demanded that the Soviets put "their cards on the table, face upwards." In practice appeasing Stalin had ceased to be part of Britain's foreign policy.