The 80th anniversary of D-day has focused attention on the events of the early 1940s, through which our parents and grandparents lived.
It was a time of amazing sacrifice – perhaps all the more remarkable when we remember that they had no idea how it would end.
Another amazing thing for me looking back at this period is that even amid the most difficult times of the war, and uncertainty about the outcome, people were devoting time to developing ideas of how society should be shaped in the future.
In 1942, the Beveridge Report developed the ideas presaging the NHS and welfare state; Rab Butler brought forward the Education Act in 1944, which dramatically reformed and expanded secondary education in the post-war era.
Outside government the Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple published his book Christianity and Social Order in 1942.
While emphasising that Church and State should stay within their own areas of expertise, he set down six principles by which he believed that society should live.
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Every child should find itself a member of a family housed with decency and dignity;
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Every child should have an opportunity of an education till years of maturity;
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Every citizen should be secure in possession of such income as will enable them to maintain a home and bring up children;
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Every citizen should have a voice in the conduct of the business or industry which is carried on by means of his labour;
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Every citizen should have sufficient daily leisure, with two days rest in seven and, if an employee, an annual holiday with pay;
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Every citizen should have assured liberty in the forms of worship, of speech, of assembly, and of association for special purposes.
Not bad principles with which to guide our voting in our 2024 General Election.
David Morgan from Wokingham Methodist Church, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham
