David Dutton

The Unionist Party and Social Policy 1906–1914

It is generally agreed that the body of legislation passed by the Liberal governments after 1905 represented a uniquely important contribution to the problems of social policy in the twentieth century. The attitude of the Unionist opposition of these years to such matters has, however, received little attention. Yet the posture taken by the Unionists was, it will be suggested, of crucial importance in the development of the party in this period, playing a major part in the determination of its electoral fortunes. An appropriate starting point for this study is the reaction of the Unionist leader, Arthur Balfour, to the electoral disaster of 1906, in which he personally had lost his parliamentary seat. ‘What is going on here’, he argued, ‘is the faint echo of the same movement which has produced massacres in St Petersburg, riots in Vienna and Socialist processions in Berlin… We are face to face (no doubt in a milder form) with the Socialist difficulties which loom so large on the Continent. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the Election of 1906 inaugurates a new era.’

Anticipating ‘the Project’: Lib-Lab Relations in the Era of Jo Grimond

The secret quest for a Liberal-Labour pact conducted by Paddy Ashdown and Tony Blair in the mid-1990s, carrying with it the eventual possibility of a major realignment on the left of British politics, was foreshadowed by developments within the two parties during Jo Grimonds leadership of the Liberals (1956–67). Grimonds hopes were raised first by the concurrent crusade of Hugh Gaitskell to modernise the Labour party and then by the parliamentary predicament which confronted Gaitskells successor, Harold Wilson, following the General Election of 1964. Though hopes of a pact, let alone realignment, proved abortive, the possibility of both was taken more seriously than has hitherto been appreciated.

Anticipating maastricht: The conservative party and Britain's first application to join the European Community

Observers of the current debate within the Conservative party over the ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht will find some striking historical parallels in the circumstances surrounding Britains first application to join the European Economic Community, or Common Market as it was then generally called, 30 years ago.

‘A nation of shopkeepers in search of a suitable Frenchman’: Britain and Briand, 1915–1930

Abstract Developing a theme explored more than 20 years ago by the Canadian historian, John Cairns, this article seeks to describe Britains difficulties in finding what could be regarded as acceptable politicians in the French Third Republic. Though Britains problems derived in part from a failure to comprehend the realities of the French political system, it was clear that some French politicians were much more acceptable than others. Three separate episodes in the long ministerial career of Aristide Briand are examined to suggest that, as far as his British contemporaries were concerned, this politician came nearer than anyone else to being a ‘suitable Frenchman’, but without ever quite filling this role. The implications which this had for Anglo‐French relations between the First World War and the early 1930s are assessed.

Sir Austen Chamberlain and British Foreign Policy 1931–37

This article seeks to analyze Sir Austen Chamberlain’s critique of British foreign policy in the six years before his death in 1937. It presents Chamberlain as one of the most perceptive contemporary observers of the international scene, and in particular of Hitler’s Germany. Unusually among British politicians, Chamberlain drew a direct causal connection between the domestic policy of the Nazi regime and its likely behaviour in the international arena. However, it is suggested that the basis for his understanding was an innate anti-Germanism, which can be dated back to his experiences as a young man in the 1880s.

The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army, by Gary Sheffield/Foch in Command: The Forging of a First World War General, by Elizabeth Greenhalgh

Ferdinand Foch and Douglas Haig were the two key figures in the military victory of 1918 which, after more than four years of unprecedentedly bloody and destructive fighting, brought success to the...

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, by Christopher Clark

The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War will no doubt unleash a renewed wave of historical literature on this already crowded topic. Christopher Clark’s magisterial study of the war’s ...

Carr, R. (2013). Veteran MPs and Conservative Politics in the Aftermath of the Great War. The Memory of All That

“The 448 men examined here never forgot the First World War” (p. 191). With this apparently unexceptionable statement Richard Carr opens the conclusion to a book which seeks to analyse the attitudes and behaviour of those veterans of the Great War who served as Conservative MPs after 1918. Yet, as an indication of what the author has done in the book’s earlier chapters, the sentence is, unfortunately, open to challenge. Most of the 448 remain essentially anonymous, their identities noted only in an appendix which reveals that a surprisingly small percentage of them ever rose to cabinet rank. It would, of course, have been unrealistic for Carr to have sought to trace such a large number of individual biographies. The subject obviously lends itself to statistical analysis, but there is little evidence of such an approach beyond discussion of seven House of Commons votes on the foreign policy of the National Government between March 1935 and May 1940. The book does contain plenty of illustrative material. We hear much of Harold Macmillan, severely wounded on the Western Front but perhaps not typical of his generation of parliamentarians; we learn much too of Oswald Mosley, a Tory MP between 1918 and 1922, but better remembered as a Labour Member (1926–31) and junior minister (1929–30) and still more for his subsequent extra-parliamentary activities in the British Union of Fascists; and there are perhaps too many references to the long-serving Tory backbencher, Robert Boothby who, born in 1900, had been too young to fight. But, for the most part, we must take it on trust that Carr’s exemplars are illustrative of something broader than themselves. The private papers of many of these largely forgotten 448 MPs have no doubt failed to survive, but more use could have been made of Hansard and the local press to open up their views and actions to historical inspection. Carr’s analysis is not always easy to follow. He seems at times keener to make ‘clever’ points than to pursue consistent lines of argument. For example, the fact that in 1940 it was Churchill rather than Lord Halifax who seized the premiership and, a few months later, the leadership of the Conservative party is presented in terms of the reaction of the two men to the experience of the Great War. As Churchill had drawn “profoundly negative lessons”

Leaders of the Opposition: From Churchill to Cameron

Politics is so often about both people and ideas. The role of the British Leader of the Opposition demonstrates this more than most. They may guide or lead their party’s ideas and messages to the electorate, but managing the people within those parties can be as time consuming and often more critical to their success as leader. Leaders of the Opposition edited by Timothy Heppell is therefore a timely and valuable analysis of what has made for success for opposition leaders throughout the post war period.

'I am as strong a Liberal as you': H. C. Janes and Luton Politics, 1935–63

Abstract The decline of the British Liberal party after the end of the First World War posed crucial questions for those with Liberal beliefs and convictions. Should they, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, pin their hopes on the eventual revival of an apparently moribund party? Alternatively, was their best hope to build upon the liberal tendencies within other existing and more powerful parties? In the historical exploration of this dilemma the role of the Liberal National (later National Liberal) party has received comparatively little attention. Historians have tended to accept the verdict of mainstream Liberals that the Liberal Nationals were nothing but Conservatives in disguise. This article seeks to explore these issues through a detailed study of the career of Herbert Janes, active in the politics of Luton for more than two decades.