Introduction: The British Party System, 1922–40

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.