Abstract
The fall of the Lloyd George coalition in 1922 marked the beginning of a new period in British party politics. The eighteen years between 1922 and the establishment of the Churchill coalition in May 1940 were characterised by four features. First, the Conservatives dominated British politics; there was either a Conservative government (October 1922 to January 1924 and November 1924 to June 1929) or a Conservative-dominated National government (October 1931 to May 1940). Second, this was a period when politicians of relative mediocrity were in the ascendancy, with men like Baldwin, Chamberlain and MacDonald fearing the dynamism and radical proposals of men such as Lloyd George, and even such a maverick as Mosley. Third, it was a time when the labour movement was politically and industrially on the defensive: the unions, despite their constitutional caution, were defeated in the General Strike of 1926, and suffered even more in the economic depression of the 1930s; the Labour Party, despite its determination to follow the road of respectable moderation, produced such unlamented administrations as those of 1924 and 1929–31 and was reduced almost to political insignificance in the election of 1931. Fourth, the period witnessed the continuing decline of the Liberals. The way was being prepared for the post-1945 emergence of a firm two-party system.
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Notes to the Introduction to Part Two
The issue was the non-prosecution of the acting editor of a communist newspaper, the Workers’ Weekly. See A. J. P. Taylor, English History, 1914–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965) p. 225, for details of the incident.
R. Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism, 2nd edn (London: Merlin Press, 1972) p. 189.
For a detailed account of the 1935 election, see C. T. Stannage Baldwin Thwarts the Opposition. The British General Election of 1935 (London: Croom Helm, 1980).
P. Addison, The Road to 1945 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975) p. 62.
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© 1987 Alan R. Ball
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Ball, A.R. (1987). Introduction: The British Party System, 1922–40. In: British Political Parties. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18725-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18725-6_5
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