The history of the Conservative Party during the first half of the twentieth century was marked by crisis and controversy, from Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform campaign through the Lloyd George coalition and the National Government between the wars to the defeat of 1945 and the post war recovery. This study provides a lucid account of this turbulent and formative period in the history of the most durable and adaptive force in modern British politics.
This comprehensive survey of English history during the first half of the twentieth century has three main themes: the political and social consequences of the replacement of the Liberal Party by the Labour Party; the continuous development of the welfare state; and the changes in England’s imperial and international position caused by the ambitions of Germany and Japan and by the emergence of the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R as world powers. The leading personalities of the period are brilliantly portrayed and the issues challengingly presently.
David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, is now at the helm of the first coalition government in the UK since WWII. His 2010 victory came after great efforts to change his party's image, moving it away from Margaret Thatcher's pro-privatization rhetoric and asserting that it was "the party of the NHS" and the advocate of the "Big Society." This collection of essays, written by leading scholars in British political history, offers insights into the Conservative Party's staying power in spite of great social and political changes in the UK and the world. It looks at how the Party has functioned historically and what its future might be, discussing its ideology and identity. Organized around key themes such as the conservative ideal, conservatism and the imperial outlook, party politics, and the impact of Thatcherism, the essays examine how conservatism has remained relevant and what it means to be conservative today. An accessible, concise overview, the book will be a primer for anyone studying British politics and political history.
By the end of the nineteenth century, reform and development of the British electoral system had inaugurated a new style of mass politics which fundamentally transformed the face of the British party system. This book traces the evolution of recognisably modern parties from their roots in the 1880s through half a century of dramatic change in organisational structure, electoral competition and constitutional thought. In the House of Commons the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the radical answer to the Conservative Party. In the country at large the complex web of Victorian social, regional and religious allegiances gave way to a cruder but more dynamic model of modern political loyalties. The transformation at Westminster and in the constituencies is surveyed in relation to changes to the franchise (including the vote for women), class consciousness, political organisation and doctrine. The comprehensive account explains the varying fortunes of the parties in the face of mass democracy, collectivism, the First World War and economic uncertainty. It also provides a critical insight into the debates and conflicts of interpretation which surround this pivotal period in British political history.
Britannia's Zealots, Volume I opens the first longitudinal study to examine the Conservative Right from the late-19th century to the present day. British Conservatism has always contained a significant section fundamentally opposed to progressive reform. A permanent minority in Parliament, dissident right-wing Conservatives nevertheless had allies in the press and sympathy among grassroots party members enabling them to create crises in the media and at party meetings. N.C. Fleming charts the evolution of reactionary politics from its preoccupation with the Protestant constitution to its fixation with the prestige and strength of Britain's global empire. He examines the overlooked ways in which Conservative Right parliamentarians shaped their party's policies and propaganda, in and out of office, and their relationships with the press and ordinary activists. He seeks to demonstrate that this influence could be circumscribing, and on occasion highly disruptive, with consequences which remain relevant for today's Conservative party. Britannia's Zealots, Volume I will be of great interest to academics and students of British history, right-wing politics, imperialism, and 20th-century history.
This book explores the origins of the post-war Welfare State in the UK, the creation of which is almost universally considered—to an extent which is regarded here as being tantamount to a myth—as being solely a Labour Party creation. The book examines the various contributions to the development of ‘welfarism’ across the first half of the twentieth century, and in particular those of Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain and William Beveridge. It assesses the effects of two World Wars; the daunting economic challenges of the 1920s and 1930s; the stimuli to post-war reconstruction; the 1945 Labour government’s implementation of the wartime Coalition Government’s post-Beveridge conclusions; and the Conservative Party’s attitude after 1945 to Labour’s legislative programme. The book invites the reader to accept that, taking developments over the half-century as a whole, the greater share of the credit for the creation of a welfare state belongs to the Conservative Party.
How do democracies form and what makes them die? Daniel Ziblatt revisits this timely and classic question in a wide-ranging historical narrative that traces the evolution of modern political democracy in Europe from its modest beginnings in 1830s Britain to Adolf Hitler's 1933 seizure of power in Weimar Germany. Based on rich historical and quantitative evidence, the book offers a major reinterpretation of European history and the question of how stable political democracy is achieved. The barriers to inclusive political rule, Ziblatt finds, were not inevitably overcome by unstoppable tides of socioeconomic change, a simple triumph of a growing middle class, or even by working class collective action. Instead, political democracy's fate surprisingly hinged on how conservative political parties – the historical defenders of power, wealth, and privilege – recast themselves and coped with the rise of their own radical right. With striking modern parallels, the book has vital implications for today's new and old democracies under siege.
The Conservative Party is Britain's most successful political party. For large parts of modern British history it has been the dominant party, though it has always suffered from internal division and periods of defeat. This colourful account of the Party's history since the late 18th century takes the reader on a voyage of discovery.
This accessible new study provides a much-needed guide to the pivotal period of British history between 1910 and 1935. Combines an up-to-date synthesis of previous work with a re-appraisal of the main personalities, themes and events of the period.
This Longman Companion provides a wide-ranging compendium of essential facts and figures on the Conservative Party - from its origins in the 1830s to the dawn of the 21st Century. Central to the book are the detailed chronologies on the Conservative Party's years in government and opposition. In addition, it contains fascinating information on the Party's relationships with women, ethnic minoirities, the trade unions, Europe, Ireland, ideology, social reform and empire.
