Abstract
When Parliament assembled at Westminster in 1924, the new Labour administration did not command an absolute majority over the Conservative and Liberal opposition. Assuming office in these circumstances provided a timely opportunity to demonstrate a readiness for government, but one that was fraught with severe difficulties for an inexperienced administration that a Conservative—Liberal combination could easily turn out.1 To all intents and purposes, during 1924 the minority Labour government was maintained in office for nearly ten months by Liberal votes at Westminster. In this sense, the 1924 MacDonald Government has gone down in history as a ministry that ‘was in office, but not in power’. However, the notion that MacDonald and his ministers, who had little truck with socialism, actively relied on an alliance with the Liberals remains one of the myths of Labour history.
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Notes
For Liberal-Labour relations, see Trevor Wilson, The Downfall of the Liberal Party, 1914–1935 (London: Collins, 1966), ch.14; David Dutton, A History of the Liberal Party in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). ch. 2; Chris Cook, The Age of Alignment: Electoral Politics in Britain, 1922–1929 (London: Macmillan, 1975); Robert Self, The Evolution of the British Party System, 1885–1940 (Harlow: Longman, 2000), pp. 1569; C. J. Wrigley, ‘Lloyd George and the Labour Party after 1922’, in Judith Loades, The Life and Times of Lloyd George (Bangor: Headstart, 1991), ch. 4.
Trevor Wilson (ed.), The Diaries of C. P. Scott, 191–1928 (London: Collins, 1970).
Harold Spender to Ramsay MacDonald, n.d. (December 1923), cited in Harold Spender, The Fire ofLife (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1926), p. 277.
Kenneth O. Morgan, Lloyd George (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974), pp. 170–8.
Michael Bentley, The Liberal Mind, 1914–1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 90–1.
Austen Chamberlain to Hilda Chamberlain, 29 December 1923, quoted in Robert C. Self (ed.), The Austen Chamberlain Letters: The Correspondence of Sir Austen Chamberlain with his Sisters Hilda and Ida, 1916–1937 (Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press; The Royal Historical Society, 1995).
C. P. Scott’s Diary, Add Mss 50, 907 (27 November 1924).
John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (Aldershot: Gregg Revivals, 1993), ch. 3.
Thomas Jones, Whitehall Diary, ed. Keith Middlemas (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 277–8 (diary entry 27 April 1924).
J. M Kenworthy, Sailors, Statesmen — And Others (London: Rich & Cowan, 1933), pp. 213–15.
Stansgate Dairy, 11 March 1924, Stansgate MSS ST/66. For a personal view of his father, see Tony Benn, Dare To Be A Daniel: Then and Now (London: Arrow Books, 2004), chs 1–2.
This section draws heavily on Chris Cook, ‘By-Elections of the First Labour Government’, in Chris Cook and John Ramsden (eds), By-Elections in British Politics (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 44–71.
Chris Wrigley, Arthur Henderson (Cardiff: GPC Books University of Wales, 1990), pp. 151–2.
Ross McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party, 1910–1924 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 193–6; Cook, ‘By-Elections of the First Labour Government’, pp. 64–6.
Ben Pimlott, Hugh Dalton (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985), pp. 147–8.
Kenneth Young, Stanley Baldwin (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976), p. 55.
Jones, Whitehall Diary, pp. 257 (diary entry 28 November 1923)
Robert Rhodes James, Bob Boothby: A Portrait (London: Headline, 1992), pp. 55–7.
John Ramsden, An Appetite for Power: A History of the Conservative Party since 1830 (London: HarperCollins; 1998), p. 26O.,
Ibid., p. 213.
John Ramsden, The Age of Balfour and Baldwin (London: Longman, 1978), p. 211.
R. Blake, The Conservative Party from Peel to Thatcher (London: Fontana, 1985 edn); Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, Baldwin (London: Weiden- feld & Nicolson, 1969); H. Montgomery Hyde, Baldwin: The Unexpected Prime Minister (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973).
Margaret Cole (ed), Beatrice Webb’s Diaries, 1924–1932 (London: Longmans. Green, 1956), p. 13 (diary entry 15 March 1924).
Ibid., 26 February 1924 The 12 members of the new Executive were R. Smillie, G. Lansbury, R. C. Wallhead, E. D. Morel, Miss Jewson, J. R. Hayes, G. Edwards, J. Maxton, Miss Lawrence, H. Snell, J. Scurr and T. Johnston. See also David Howell, MacDonald’s Party: Labour ldentities and Crisis, 1922–1931 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 3O.,
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© 2006 John Shepherd and Keith Laybourn
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Shepherd, J., Laybourn, K. (2006). Minority Government. In: Britain’s First Labour Government. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287365_5
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