delegations during his time on the National Executive. Assistant Postmaster-General Burke had an easy re-election at the 1945 general election, his result being one of the first to be announced. On 10 August he was appointed by new Prime Minister Clement Attlee as Assistant Postmaster-General, being the spokesman for his department in the House of Commons as the Postmaster-General was the Earl of Listowel. In office, Burke's main job was to return the Royal Mail and the General Post Office (including the telephone system) to its pre-war function of serving civilian life, including reintroducing some services closed to aid the war effort. In March 1946 Burke and Listowel were able to announce the opening of several schemes to improve the service. Pressure was put on Burke by the Union of Post Office Workers and the Post Office Engineering Union to include Cable & Wireless in the Government's programme of nationalisation, pressure which was ultimately successful. The department expanded in spring 1946 when the Ministry of Information was abolished, and Burke announced the commencement of BBC radio broadcasts in Russian. Despite progress made, Burke was unable to allow the resumption of the special 'Greetings Telegram' service in November 1946. The Post Office made a substantial profit of £36,191,000 in 1945–46, leading to a move by opposition MPs to lower charges. Burke was caught up in a minor diplomatic spat in April 1947 over BBC speeches by Henry A. Wallace criticising the United States Government; he insisted that the British Government did not intervene over the subject of talks, and received the support of his own side. Burke left office in October 1947. Dissenting votes Out of office Burke retained his membership of the National Executive Committee, but began to dissent from some of the Government's legislation. In December 1948 he opposed the Licensing Bill, along with two other Labour MPs; and he supported a Liberal Party motion for a Royal Commission into war pensions in April 1949. At the 1950 general election, in addition to a Conservative Party candidate (their first in the division since 1929), he also faced nominees from the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Independent Labour Party. Burke won re-election by 7,049 votes. Bevanism Burke topped the poll in the trade union section ballot for the Labour Party National Executive in October 1950. When the Bevanite faction in the Labour Party issued a pamphlet in September