The creation of the welfare state in Britain, of which popular housing provision forms an essential part, has been seen as the working out of a wartime consensus on social policy. This article, by exploring the housing programmes of political parties during the Second World War, argues against this consensual view of social reform. The Labour Party's pragmatic approach to solving the housing shortage contrasted sharply with the more limited plan put forward by the Conservatives and was a major contributory factor in the Labour victory at the 1945 General Election.