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(5) To The Historian, This Treasury Opposition Was By Far The Most Important. ...

(5)
To the historian, this Treasury opposition was by far the most important. In analysing the political climate of the day, it shows differences of thinking at the highest levels of government at a time of war, and when a coalition government was considered to be united. But even more importantly, this Treasury opposition was to continue into the period of implementation, and as we shall see later on, these arguments had profound consequences upon how the Beveridge plan was implemented. It should also be noted at this stage that opposition within Government was not restricted to the Treasury. Ironically, Bevin was initially strongly opposed to the conclusions of Beveridge, believing that it was contrary to the interests of the trade unions, which were best met by higher wages, although the TUC were strongly behind the plan.
Whilst the majority of the Socialist movement including the Labour Party, the TUC and interestingly the Communist Party, were firmly behind the plan, the Marxist left were strongly against the plan on ideological terms. Their position is well summarised by a Socialist Party of Great Britain pamphlet written in 1943:
We propose to show that this apparently philanthropic gesture on the part of the Government will not be an entirely unmixed blessing for the working population, and the approval with which it has been received by different sections of political opinion arises in some cases from the complete lack of knowledge that whatever benefits, if any, may accrue to a certain number of workers, the employers will most certainly gain on balance in the long run.(6)
The essence of the Marxist left position was that capitalism was the cause of poverty and could not be reformed. It would therefore be wrong for socialists to support attempts to reform the system to make it more palatable. Groups such as the socialist party of Great Britain also viewed the report as an attempt to placate the working class, and prevent any possible social revolution at the end of the war. The position of these groups was in the overall scheme of things, of little relevance. This may not have been the case if the Communist Party, by far the largest Marxist organisation, had adopted a Marxist position rather than the reformist position of the TUC.
If the opposition of the Treasury was practical, and the opposition of the left was ideological, then the opposition of the Tory right was a combination of the two. There existed then as now, a strong desire to minimise the role of government in affairs as much as possible, and so there was a natural ideological objection to the government run social insurance scheme. Conservative MP, David Willetts has reflected upon the Tory opposition, and has drawn the following conclusions:
Conservatives were wary of Beveridge for two main reasons.


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