Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Wartime During the wartime coalition, Mainwaring was not always prepared to go along with the Labour Party's alliance with the Conservatives. He supported an amendment to criticise the poor position of old age and widow pensioners in 1942, along with 48 other Labour MPs but against the wishes of the front bench. He also voted to criticise the Government for delaying implementation of the Beveridge Report in February 1943. 1945 general election At the 1945 general election, Mainwaring faced a tough fight against Harry Pollitt who had kept up his connection with the Rhondda East constituency. Although the Liberal Party did not field a candidate, the Welsh nationalists of Plaid Cymru did. Senior Labour figures including Professor Harold Laski spoke for Mainwaring, who was put under pressure by the Communists' identifying with the working class while the Labour national campaign made a bid for middle-class votes. Civil aviation Mainwaring succeeded in winning a very narrow victory by 972 votes. He was a notably less frequent speaker in the post-war Parliaments, but kept up his allegiance to the left. In 1946 he broke with the whip to support an amendment to the Civil Aviation Bill which required the directors of the new airline corporations to be full-time, and to oppose a Lords amendment affecting the Air Traffic Advisory Council. However Mainwaring opposed an amendment to exclude men from Wales and Monmouthshire from the liability to do National Service, declaring that "no decent man or woman in Wales would support the amendment". Korean war At the 1950 general election, Harry Pollitt made his third challenge to win the Rhondda East constituency. However, the outbreak of the Cold War against Soviet Union was thought to have alienated many in the coalfield. At the poll, Mainwaring obtained a majority of 22,182 and Pollitt barely retained his deposit. Mainwaring was a strong supporter of the Government policy of fighting the Korean War, which he declared to be in the interests of workers of Britain. Welsh nationalism Mainwaring became a staunch opponent of Welsh nationalism. In 1955 he denounced the assumption that the English "were in some peculiar way wholly foreign and alien to Wales", and ridiculed basing a nation on "poets, preachers and musicians". He supported reform of the system of leasehold ownership to allow leasehold tenants to buy their freeholds, attacking the sale of estates to financiers. Retirement After