1.1

• Females could not vote in general elections

  1918
• Female prime minister


  1979
• Liberals as the conservatives main opponent
• Labour overtaking the liberals
• Stark contrasts between the parties policies
• A number of coalition governments, with economic policies being almost identical between labour and the conservatives
• Reasons for the liberals' fall

  • Doomed before world war due to inability to deal with strike action, suffragettes and problems in northern ireland
  • Failed to adapt to class-based voting (rejected working classmen as parliamentary candidates)
  • Doomed during the war- forced them to take an active role in the economy, which was illiberal. This led to Lloyd George who liked these policies ousted traditional liberal henry Asquith as prime minister for the coalition gov 1916. Many saw him as a traitor, and continued their support of Asquith, the party was split
• After splitting the liberal party, Lloyd George was forced to rely on the conservatives support in the 'coupon election'
• The coupon was a letter issued by Lloyd George and conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law to parliamentary candidates who stood for the coalition
• Conservatives relied upon 'the man who had won the war' to boost their votes, whereas lloyd george relied upon the conservatives to compensate for his split party
• Representation of the peoples act


  • Allowing all men over 21 to vote, regardless of wealth/ property
  • Allowing women over 30 to vote
• The industrial working class now= 80% of the electorate
• The electorate had trebled in size, from 7.7M in 1910 to 21.4M in 1918
• The Asquith-Lloyd George split was never healed, in 1920 Asquith liberals voted to eject Lloyd George supporters from the Leamington party conference
• Lloyd George had amassed a huge political fund, including by selling knighthood for £10,000 (about 78k today)
• These titles were not just being bought by honourable men- but criminals, who had made their money in dubious ways, or by Americans who expected a return for their party donations, such as William Waldorf Astor who would buy a seat in the House of Commons and duly a peerage in the House of Lords
• Without this money, liberals could not afford to maintain an effective local party machine or to yield candidates for the 1922, 1923, 1924 elections
• War led to a growth in trade union membership, which funded the labour party
• The liberal split- Asquith backed labour as he thought they would fail, forcing them to rely on liberal support- which did not happen
• Campbell, a leftwing communist had written an article in a communist paper (said workers should not shoot workers in war)- which almost got him prosecuted- until Macdonald used his political influence to prevent this!
• In 1931, Macdonald and his chancellor of the Exchequer, Snowden, saw no other option but to proceed with the cuts
• Macdonald and his supporters were expelled from the Labour party
• Like Lloyd George, Macdonald became a pm without a party, and had decided to step down- but king George convinced him not too, (to have government instability at such a time could only make things worse)
• Conservatives reaction; decided to back him, as he was willing to be the face for the unpopular economic policies- meaning that conservatives could triumph when the situation improved
• The British public overwhelmingly voted for the National government
• As Mcdonalds health fell, Baldwin effectively served as PM from 1931, being elected for the third time after Macdonald resigned in 1935
• In 1935, Balwin offered the electorate a deal; Britain would increase spending on rearmament to fulfil any military requests from the league
• Baldwin was attacked in the 1940s and 50s as one of the guilty men who had appeased Hitler
• Chamberlain flew 3 times (air travel was RARE), to meet and resolve crises with Hitler and his expansionism
• Churchill was critical of Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, as were many others when they saw Chamberlains timid reaction to the outbreak of war
• Chamberlain eventually was forced out of office, after a vote of no confidence took place, to which Churchill won the election for the conservatives
• The Emergency Powers Act 1940 gave wide-ranging powers over the British people to the government
• Churchill took the post of PM, and Minister for Defence. =he oversaw not only the home front, but also a leading role in military strategy
• After Churchills winning strategies in ww2, labour managed to win the 1945 election by nearly 200 seats (213-393)
• Conservatives defeat was in part due to the memories of the failure to build ' homes for heroes ' after ww1 and the failure in the depression 1930, as well as Churchills lackluster campaign- as he assumed the victory to have been in the bag
• Attlee also worked hard for voters after deciding to move away from the coalition, with labour being far more in tune with the demands and expectations of the British people, and promised to implement the recommendations of the 1942 Beveridge report in its 1945 manifesto 'Let us face the future'
• Bevin, with trade union roots who successfully minimised strikes and maximise output
• Morrison, and his coordinating effects to cope with the effects of the Blitz, he became deputy head prime minister after the war
• Dalton, who gained respect for his economic competence as minister for war economy- becoming chancellor of the Exchequer after the war
• The war had brought the conservatives and labour together, a stepping stone for a post-war consensus