Britain Theme 1

• 1918 RoPA

  • all men over 21
• What was the Liberal split

  • Lloyd George coalition won over Asquith's party
• Cash for honours

  • 1922
  • sold 1500 knighthoods and 100 peerages
• 1924 Labour scandal

  • incitement to mutiny
  • accused of communist sympathies
  • zinoviev letter
• 1930 Housing Act


  cleared 3/4 of a million slums
• 1929 Wall street crash

  • budget unbalanced
  • panic selling of the pound
• National Government

  • 1931
  • 14 MPs not wanting to join
  • 10% cut in benefits - cause
• 1931-35 NG

  Macdonald

  • League of nations
  • peace pledge union
  • 11m wanted collective security
  • rearmament 1934 onwards
• 1935-37 NG

  Baldwin

  • rearmament
  • appeasement to Hitler
  • wanted collective security
• 1937-40 NG

  Chamberlain

  • appeasement in Hitler
  • increased military spending from £120m to £1.5b
• Extremism

  • CPGB - 9000 members
  • BUF - 50 000 members
  • Sidney and Beatrice Webb visited SU and said Communism was a success
  • Oswald Mosley 'New Party' - never had a seat in parliament but a threat to law and order
• Abdication of crisis

  • Edward VIII - heir and was a playboy
  • not conservative attitudes
  • rumours of relation with USA divorcee Wallis Simpson
  • cabinet told him to abdicate
• 1940 Churchill

  • aggressive foreign policy
  • supported military spending
• post-war damage

  • lost 750k men
  • debt was 136% of economic output
  • debt - £8b
• speculative boom

  • increased demand for scarce and rationed goods
  • money in the stock market
• 1920 recession

  • 12% ue
  • south wales and tyneside - coal and ship building collapsed
  • cost of living increased by 25%
  • increased imports of American steel
  • Geddes Axe - £87m of cuts
• 1924 Free trade v tariffs

  • conservatives put tariffs on imports
  • protect domestic industries
  • goods from abroad became too expensive
• 1925 Gold standard

  • interest rates had to be kept high
  • high borrowing cost
  • expensive exports
• Wall street crash

  • global trade decreased by 66% over the next 5 years
  • exports declined by 50%
  • 1931 - economy shrank by 5%
  • 1936 Tyneside hunger march
• 1934 Special Areas Act

  direct assistance to areas such as Tyneside, South Wales
• 1934 Economic Recovery

  • real income rose by 19%
  • exports rose by 28%
  • unemployment decreased from 17% to 8.5%
  • 1931 - removed from the gold standard
• Managed wartime economy

  • ministry of aircraft production
  • nationalisation
  • ministry of food and labour
• post ww2

  • £4b debt
  • trade declined by 2/3
  • £2.7b marshall aid
• 1945 nationalisation

  • 1947 Transport Act - nationalise railways and buses
  • 1948 Gas Act - nationalise gas industry
  • full employment
  • export increased by 80%
• 1945-51 Labour achievements

  • NHS
  • Labour manifesto - let us face the future
  • 1946 Bank of England nationalised
  • 1947 coal nationalised
  • welfare
• what was consensus

  • full employment
  • mixed economy
  • welfare
  • corporatism
  • keynesian economics
• Decline of Labour 1951

  • 1950 Korea War - increased military spending
  • Foreign sec Bevin died and Sir Cripps resigned
  • 1949 HofC Redistribution of Seats Act - reduced number of labour seats by redistributing constituency boundaries
• butskellism


  ..
• 1955 Suez

  • eden
  • nasser occupied canal
  • humiliated
• Night of the Long Knives

  • macmillan
  • sacked 7 ministers and replaced with young cabinet members
• Conservative scandals

  • Vassall - blackmailed by soviet security and spies gave his name to M16
  • Philby - head of british counter intelligence and lied about being a spy suspect
  • Profumo - affair with christine keeler who had an affair with russian attache ivanov
• 1963 douglas home

  satirised by 'private eye'
• 1964-70 Wilson's achievements

  • welfare and education
  • wanted to build 500 000 new houses
• 1967

  Callaghan forced to devalue the pound
• Selsdon meeting

  wanted free market and reduced intervention BUT Heath betrays this
• 1976 Callaghan

  • believed britain must pay its way
  • clashed with Tony Benn who wanted to protect welfare spending
• 1979 poll

  69% felt dissatisfied with the government
• Eden economic goals

  • stop-go economics
  • mixed economy
  • keynesian econ
  • full employment
• National Board on prices and incomes

  regulate pay settlements
• prices and incomes act 1966

  allowed wages if companies could prove they were increasing output