Eighty years ago this week Labour declines to remain in coalition with Churchill

 

The British Labour party conference chaired by MP Ellen Wilkinson formally declined an invitation from Churchill to maintain the coalition until Japan had been defeated. In itself the proposal was largely hollow, because no-one expected victory in the East before 1946. A general election before November was unavoidable so Labour was being asked to commit to continuing the coalition irrespective of what the balance of power  in the House of Commons would be. Churchill refused the proposal by Labour leader Clem Attlee to hold the election in October so there would be an election as soon as practical with  July as the likely date.

The Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin announced a radical shift of manpower allocation; he was careful to avoid using the term demobilization. The release of men from the forces was to begin almost immediately,  including the army still fighting in Burma. He aimed to release 60,000 men for the building industry so as to start repairing the war damage to Britain by the end of the year. Former coal miners would also be released back into their former occupation and the much-feared conscription of "Bevin boys" into the mines would cease.

Stalin delivered a blunt response to criticism of the Soviet arrest of sixteen Polish leaders. He denied that they had been seized after being invited to negotiations or that the affair concerned the political future of Poland in any way. The future of Poland lay with the (puppet) regime that the Soviets had installed in Warsaw.  The men had been arrested under laws protecting the security of the Red Army's rear areas. He applied the term "diversionists" to the victims, implying that they had fomented insurgency against the Soviets. The ground was being prepared for a show trial of non-Communist Poles.