the first general election since 1935 was held in britain in may 1945, giving a landslide victory for the labour party, whose leader was clement attlee. the policies undertaken and implemented by this labour government laid the base of the consensus. the conservative party accepted many of these changes and promised not to reverse them in its 1947 "industrial charter". attlee, using the beveridge report and keynes economics, laid out his plans for what became known as "the attlee settlement".