Editing James Callaghan (section)

==Attlee government, 1945–1951==
[[File:James Callaghan by Elliott & Fry (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|Callaghan in 1947]]
The Labour Party won the overdue general election in a landslide victory on 26 July 1945, bringing [[Clement Attlee]] to power, in charge of the first-ever majority Labour government. Callaghan won his [[Cardiff South (UK Parliament constituency)|Cardiff South]] seat at the [[1945 United Kingdom general election|1945 general election]] (and would hold a Cardiff-area seat continuously until his retirement in 1987). He defeated the sitting [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] MP, [[Arthur Evans (politician)|Sir Arthur Evans]], by 17,489 votes to 11,545. He campaigned on such issues as the rapid demobilisation of the armed forces and for a new housing construction programme.{{sfn|Conroy|2006|p=13}} He stood on the left wing of the party, and was a vocal critic of the United States in 1945, joining 22 other rebels in voting against accepting the [[Anglo-American loan]].<ref>Andrew Davies, '' To Build A New Jerusalem: Labour Movement from the 1890s to the 1990s'' (1992), pp. 232–33.</ref> Callaghan did not join the [[Keep Left (pamphlet)|Keep Left]] group of left-wing Labour MPs, but he did sign a letter in 1947 with 20 other MPs from the group calling for a 'socialist foreign policy' which would create an alternative to the capitalism of the United States and the totalitarianism of the [[USSR]].{{sfn|Conroy|2006|pp=14–25}}

In October 1947 Callaghan got his first junior government job, when he was appointed [[Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport]] under [[Alfred Barnes (Labour politician)|Alfred Barnes]]. Callaghan was given responsibility for improving road safety, and most notably he persuaded the government to introduce [[zebra crossing]]s, and to extend the use of [[Cat's eye (road)|cat's eyes]] on trunk roads. Callaghan did not oppose the government's use of emergency powers to break dockers' strikes in both 1948 and 1949, however, he sympathised with the feelings of ordinary dockers and wrote to Attlee to protest over how the Dock Labour Scheme was operated.{{sfn|Conroy|2006|pp=14–25}}

He moved to be [[Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty]] from February 1950, where he was a delegate to the [[Council of Europe]], where he supported plans for economic co-operation but resisted plans for a European army. When the [[Korean War]] broke out in 1950, Callaghan was given responsibility for deciding how the money allocated to the [[Royal Navy]] for rearmament was spent.{{sfn|Conroy|2006|pp=14–25}}