'It may be a blessing in disguise,' suggested Clemmie. 'At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised,' Churchill huffed

So the wartime PM responded with typically dry wit when the Conservatives lost the snap July 1945 election in the wake of VE Day glory. The weary nation wanted new leadership and looked to Clement Attlee's Labour. From politics to sport, NEIL CLARK looks back on what happened after victory

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HE events to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day are over, but what happened after the celebrations marking the end of the war in Europe?

There was widespread euphoria that the Nazis had been defeated and Britain had been on the winning side, but the country faced enormous problems when it came to rebuilding the war-torn economy.

Our national debt stood at 249% of GDP an all-time high; a number of our major cities, including of course the capital London, had been heavily bombed in German air raids; and there were continued shortages of food and other essentials; plus a housing crisis with at least 500,000 houses destroyed in the war. Moreover, although the fighting in Europe was over, the war with Imperial Japan in the Far East continued.

The first question was: to whom should the task of rebuilding post-war Britain lie?

Winston Churchill, inspirational leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister since 1940, wanted the wartime coalition government to continue until Japan was defeated. But a special Labour Party conference in Blackpool on May 21 voted for the cross-party alliance to end and so, on June 15, King George VI dissolved Parliament and a general election was scheduled for July 5.

In the meantime, people enjoyed the first idyllic days of peace in Europe for six years.

"Seventeen days since VE Day, and never have I seen a nation change so quickly from a wartime mentality to a peace mentality," noted the former diplomat and spy Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart. "The war has disappeared from the news... Sport and the election now fill the front pages.