Eighty years ago this week Britain indulges in a nostalgic fantasy of a colonial future

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The government announced plans to construct a new building to house the Colonial Office, integrating on a single site activities spread around five separate ones. Extra space was needed to meet "new and important responsibilities as a result of the great developments in the colonial Empire."  These presumably referred to the new possessions awarded to Britain by the Versailles Treaty over twenty-five years before, which included Palestine which Britain was frantically trying to slough off. It was to be an immense building across the road from Westminster Abbey covering a comparable area; it would have dominated the area north of the Palace of Westminster. Providing a suitable venue to receive visiting foreigners (presumably colonials) was part of the brief. It was to take some years to clear the site and history rapidly overtook the project which was never begun.

The opposition found a way of introducing the question of the closed shop into a debate on fair wages for employees of government contractors by way of a one word amendment.  The government had avoided any discussion of a major concession to the unions which became one of the foundations of their power into the 1980s. The proposer of the amendment presciently warned that closed shop could "open the way to a position in which the T.U.C. might either become a power rivalling the House of Commons or a power in alliance with and subservient to the Government." Another Conservative MP put the argument bluntly that it was a question of whether workers could be faced with the choice between joining a particular union or being sacked. Inevitably given the government's majority the amendment was defeated.

The Muslim leagues reversed its decision and accepted five of the twelve seats in the interim government of India that was to lead the way to independence. The move was purely tactical; negotiations with Congress had not led to an agreement to govern in coalition. The communities were as far apart as ever.

Appeals by the major Nazi war criminals against their death sentences were rejected. Hermann Goering cheated the hangman by killing himself with cyanide which he had kept hidden during his detention and trial. The other ten were hanged at Nuremberg.


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