Preview

Why Did The Labour Party's Dominate In The 1945 General Election

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
3102 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Why Did The Labour Party's Dominate In The 1945 General Election
Despite the Labour Party struggling during the 1930s, the 1945 General Elections reflected a Labour majority over a Conservative majority. However, to understand how the Labour Party came to dominate in the 1945 General Election, one must consider how the Conservative Party dominated in the 1935 General Election. One must also take into consideration what pressures Britain faced during the 1930s as well as how each party handled issues during and after the Second World War. Youngs mentions, “The thirties were a time of intense political and social controversy. The Depression and rising tensions in Europe stimulated disputes between left-wing and right-wing activists over foreign policy and economic justice.” For instance, there was mass …show more content…
The key parties in this election involved the Conservative Party, headed by Stanley Baldwin, the Labour Party, headed by Clement Attlee, and the Liberal Party, headed by Sir Herbert Samuel. 1931 saw the establishment of the National Government with a Cabinet of four Labours four Conservatives and two Liberals. The main goal of the National Government was to bring all three parties together to figure out ways to combat the financial and economic crisis in Britain at the time. However, the parties split during the 1931 general elections, largely in part to the Conservative Party’s decision to introduce protectionist trade policies. Also, the Conservative Party rose to power, namely with a plan to help combat the Depression Youngs explains, “The Conservatives served their landed constituency by organizing agricultural marketing boards, and showed their interest in middle class by lowering interest rates, which made it easier for house buyers to get …show more content…
Unlike Chamberlain, Churchill was more than willing to address issues regarding the war. Additionally, he formed a coalition of the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal parties. According to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The government could not fumction without money so the issue was put to the voters to decide. The Conservatives had to win a large number of seats in order to justify their rejection of the budget, however they did not and ithe election was therefore a defeat for the Conservatives. However, the Liberals no longer had an overall majority in the commons so they could only get their bills passed if they got the support of the Labour party and Irish Nationalists. The Irish Nationalists would only give their support in return for granting of Home Rule for Ireland, so the Liberal party had to include Home Rule in their policy. The Liberals were reliant on the Labour Party as Labour would only support them in return for favourable legislation for trade unions, assistance for working class candidates to become MPs. This allowed the Labour Party to develop links with uniona and allowed them to field more candidates at future elections, enabling them to challenge the Liberal Party; weakening the Liberals. After the election the budget was re-introduced into parliament and was passed by both…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    02) - Explain why the Conservative Party won the General Election of 1959 – (12 marks)…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was the winner of the 1935 federal election, but what made the voters choose them over the other parties in the election? To begin, the leader of the party J.S. Woodsworth, was able to persuade voters with motivational speeches, respond to voter questions with confidence, and the party platform was also well written and balanced. To begin, a contributing factor to the success of the CCF were the motivational and persuasive speeches by the leader of the party, J.S. Woodsworth. He appealed to the entire audience and his party was in the center of attention. Additionally, the CCF were able to respond proficiently to questions posed by the voters with detail and clarity which led to voter confidence.…

    • 242 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    While the 1924 Labour government was undoubtedly one of the most important developments in party politics, there were other factors that contributed to the change from Liberal vs Conservatives in the 1880 to Labour vs conservative with Liberal's downfall by 1951. The 1924 Labour government was arguably a significant development as it was the first time Labour won an election, proving they had progressed from a small independent party to a real opponent of the Conservatives. This was significant as it showed that Labour had finally gotten their foot in the door and how Conservatives had not fully recovered from their decline in the previous 2 decades. The win was a huge shock to the Conservatives, but they won in a weak position and only lasted 10 months.…

    • 944 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the1870s, the Conservative Party won three out of four elections and formed the government for 17 years out of a total of 20 years. It reflected the Conservative Party was the most powerful party in England at that time; they even had an overpowering majority of seats in the House of Lords. They had support from everywhere. However, the situation changed dramatically when the Liberal party won the general election in 1906 with an overwhelming majority of 400 seats as against 157 seats for the Conservatives party. This event was marked as the well-known ‘Liberal landslide’. There are several reasons why the Conservative lost such a large amount of seats; national efficiency, the imposition of Education Act and Licensing Act, tariff campaign and Neglect of social reform.…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The conservatives vastly supported his policy at first but due to his presidential style of government all the mistakes were blamed on him with the conservatives barely receiving any criticism. The conservatives and unionists resented his policy on Ireland. It also in the short term led to violence and damaged his credibility in the eyes of the public. There was mass unemployment and threat of strikes as the trade unions grew, causing further disruption. Lloyd George also kept taxation at wartime level, which was unpopular with lower classes, which consequently led to the working class electorate to support Labour in big cities like Sheffield. It can be argued that his policies and decision making led to a decrease in his popularity and worsening of relations with the conservatives. Even though his policies were successful at first the poor economy ensured that they could not be implemented fully leading to frustration in the public who expected Lloyd George to deliver on his promises. Britain had lost most of its export markets after the war and therefore it had a reduced income, policies such as the insurance act only put further strain on the economy. Early success with housing and industrial relations were overshadowed by economic problems, which Lloyd George failed to address.…

    • 1128 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Perhaps the most important policy contributing to the Tories’ defeat was the Tariff Reform pushed by Joseph Chamberlain. The reform would have taxed many foods coming from other countries, whilst showing preference to imports from within the British Empire. The intention was the protection and growth of the Empire (Imperial Protectionism), but the idea split the Conservatives and Balfour refused to accept the policy. This caused Chamberlain’s resignation, and made the party look indecisive and caused a divide. The Liberal party would use this to their advantage in the 1906 election and painted the Tories as the party of highly…

    • 519 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the 1935 election the Liberals campaigned by saying that Conservatives had stolen most of their new reforms from the Liberals, who were better able to operate them. The depression gave King his greatest Parliamentary majority up to that time, 171 seats out of 245.…

    • 3163 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is a magical realism story about a group of girls, whose parents are wolves, being rehabilitated to live like human girls. They are taken to a Catholic school and are taught how to speak and act by nuns. It is about the action in the story but it can be interpreted to be about outcasts. One of the girls, Mirabella, is left out of things and doesn’t fit in, eventually she gets abandoned. This story shows us how an outcast might feel. Karen Russell’s style creates a memorable lesson.…

    • 543 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How far was it the National Governments role, which prevented the growth of extremist parties in Great Britain in the 1930s?…

    • 582 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There was Industrial unrest, which would effect many things. The government would need to deal this as a collapse of industry would have a huge impact on the country. Another problem the Liberal’s faced was a rebellious House of Lords as a result of a Conservative majority. The House of Lords could reject bills, until 1911, which would cause problems for the Liberals and the changes they wanted to make. Both of these events could be seen as a possible excuse, as to why the Liberal Government hadn’t…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Labour weakness was the most important reason for Conservative dominance from 1951 to 1964. How far do you agree? Between 1951 and 1964, the Conservative's time in power, the Labour party were providing ineffectual opposition. One of the reasons for this was their internal disputes over issues such as unilateralism. However, there were also more important reasons for Conservative dominance, such as the economy and growing prosperity in Britain, the property owning democracy and the greater availability of credit, modern conveiniences and luxury items. Prosperity during this time was growing, and people were in general wealthier than they had been before. A reason for this could have been the manipulation of the economy by the Conservatives; their stop-and-go stagflation lowered and rose taxes in accordance to the election date in order to gain more votes. Though they had no real long-term economic plan and their wily manipulation was often criticised, it did help them to gain votes. The wages also rose during this time meaning people were able to more freely afford luxury items and other things such as mortgages, which links to the property owning democracy.…

    • 562 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Indeed, a major reason for Labour’s victory was because Harold Wilson advocated a campaign for economic modernisation of Britain so the nation did not fall behind the excelling economies of European rivals such as West Germany. Economists raise the significant point that economic modernisation looks at the internal dynamics of a nation while referring to social and cultural structures and the adaptation of new technologies. The Conservatives failed in every social and economic aspect of this theory, as shown in 1963, as unemployment reached approximately 800,000 making a mockery of Macmillan’s, ‘never had it so good speech.’ The inability of the Conservative Party to economically modernise Britain led not only to their downfall in the 1964 election, but also to the collapse of Britain’s economy during this era. Economists point out that as a result of Conservative mismanagement of the economic sectors, Britain faced financial hardships, including a huge balance of payments deficit, which undeniably caused higher levels of inflation, causing the cost of living for ordinary British people to rise. Moreover, the economic boom of the late 1950s and the, ‘Age of Affluence,’ had reached its end, with great saturation in the markets for consumer goods. Inevitably, poor…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Who Is Jezebel

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages

    For over two thousand years Jezebel has been known as the bad girl of the bible, the wickedest of all the women. The ancient queen has been denounced as a prophet of false and foreign gods, a witch, prostitute, killer of innocents, and enemy of the one true God. Before her time as queen of Israel, she was raised as a princess in the kingdom of Phoenicia where she grew up as a priestess of Baal, there most powerful god. The story of Baal is a god that dies in spring, and a goddess of love and war mourns. But after an endless summer with drought and famine Baal is resurrected in the fall bringing with him rain and storm. Baal because of his time of resurrection was the god of fall and autumn, rain and therefore the god of melancholia and sorrow. He was the god of storm, the maker of thunder and lightning bolts, and the god of fertility and sex. He was also known as Prince Baal or the rider of the clouds and in the bible he is often called Baalzebub, changed to Beelzebub in the New Testament. He brings with him several goddesses such as Ashera, The Queen of the Sky and Astarte, the lunar goddess symbolized as a star within a circle (often seen in witchcraft today). She also was a goddess of fertility sex, and war, this was not only a sexualized religion, but a violent one to. Slashing and cutting oneself was a part of the religious ceremonies, as was human sacrifices, sometimes even child sacrifices. Jezebels life was formed around such beliefs, and from the day she was born until her death she stayed faithful to her gods. Her background shows that this is all she knew, and in her land to worship these gods was normal.…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dr. Kunal S. Badade, Head Department of Commerce, PG Centre, Dayanand College of Commerce, Latur and Dean, Commerce Faculty, S.R.T.M. University, Nanded.…

    • 6059 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Powerful Essays