Lord Liverpool's Injustices

As with most prime ministers, lord Liverpool succeeded in some areas and had failures in others. His term in power can be spilt into two phases, his response to already existing problems which many characterise as repressive and the second his reforms which in the end had to come though to truly deal with some of Britons problems. The problems he faced were post war unrest, long term economic and social problems, radical threat and political reform.
Lord Liverpool himself seems like a good candidate for prime minister he held good characteristics of a prime minister in that he was a good speaker and held a good sense of judgement. No only this but he had great experience having previously been foreign sectary and sectary for war. He was also
highly respected by many of his colleges giving him a good position within government and a good start to his term. However he did have problems that hence his name he was a lord meaning he was not allowed in the house of commons and to discuss issues with the electrets and relying on over ministers in his cabinet. Governments at the time also had extremely limited resources at this time, with 8% of GDP and little power over public services. Overall lord Liverpool himself was a good prime minister in his skills and would have had more success haven given more resources however some of his decision making could be criticised as elitist or just not the best decision. Post war unrest was one of the main reasons why Liverpool had to take a repressive approach to the problems that the end of the war with it.
A sudden demobilisation of around 300,000 soldiers was blow for the already rising unemployment and with so many unable to find work many were angered by the situation. The war had also caused massive debt and to deal with this there was cuts in the civil service, a rise of indirect taxes and the abolition of income tax which lord Liverpool himself was opposed to. These actions however seemed to make the situation worst then better. It took seven years for public finances restore to credibility and the cuts in government spending only exacerbated the depression. This also did not help the already prominent radical threat as they were highly critical of the government’s clear interest in helping the land elite. Having said this it is taken into consideration that there was not much they could do, and in the dire situation it would have been hard to appease everyone. They did take measures to ensure free trade and returning to the gold standard to help the situation. Overall they made the best of a hard situation but the war also had effect on other problems such as the demobilisation having an effect on the
economy.
The industrial revolution was in full swing at the time of Lord Liverpool’s term and agriculture was taking a turn for the worst. The changes in industry meant that there was less need for labour due to the new machinery which was proving more cost effective. This lead to protests such as such as the luddites movement and the pentrich protest. Lord Liverpool is highly criticised for the reaction taken as they decided to kill and arrest many of the people involved in both. There were also many problems within the country to do with agriculture.