This is the first detailed scholarly study of conscription in the years immediately following the Second World War, when for the first time in Britain introduced conscription. L. V. Scott examines the military reasoning behind conscription, and then shows how opposition to National Service grew in the changing economic circumstances of post-war Britain. He explores the party politics of National Service and examines how the Labour Party previously bitterly opposed to conscription, came to pass the 1947 National Service Act. The book examines how National Service was essential to the defence and foreign policies of the Attlee governments, and became one of the foundations of the post-war consensus on Britain's security.