At the end of September 1939, the young James Callaghan, at that time the assistant secretary of the Inland Revenue staff federation, wrote that ‘Socialists must be ready to take advantage of the war and the immediate post-war situation’. A few days later, he jotted down his own personal aspirations, calling for colonial freedom, an end to the system of imperial preference, and for fundamental social and economic change at home: ‘Britain to cease enduring two millions unemployed; the Bank of England to be controlled and a National Investment Bank to be established; coal-mining, cotton, woollen and agriculture industries to be planned in the national interest.’ Whether or not Callaghan was typical of the forthcoming 1945 generation of Labour candidates, he did at least hold views which were a fairly close approximation of the party's pre-war programme; and, significantly, he saw reconstruction, at both domestic and international levels, as a vital topic even at this early stage of the conflict. Indeed, as was seen in chapter 4, talk of ‘peace aims’ was endemic throughout the Labour Party from the first days. Kevin Jefferys has written that, in terms of discussion of reconstruction, the war fell into two phases. In the first, he argues, the coalition directed its energies almost exclusively to matters of military strategy and production; once the military situation had improved there was ‘an active phase of reconstruction’, with the government under increasing pressure to outline its reform plans.