On this day
30 May '19 08:141 editOn this day in 1929
The British Labour Party won the general election with 287 seats and 37% of the popular vote. It was the first time the Party was independently the largest in the commons. Margaret Bondfield was appointed as the first female cabinet minister; Minister for Labour. This Labour Party was strong and radical, driving positive social change by improving wages, unemployment pay and passing the housing act to focus on slums.
Disaster was to strike soon after though with the Wall Street crash and the Great Depression. Unemployment hit 2.5 million which was a huge number given the population. The impact on the economy as global trade collapsed was significant and the Labour Party could not align behind a single way forward out of the crisis with the cabinet being deeply spilt over social spending cuts, trade tariffs and eventually a run on the pound and a confidence crises caused the government to resign.
Interestingly the crisis caused King George V to step in and demand the formation of a “National Government” consisting of cross party representation. MacDonald formed a three party coalition with the Tories and Liberal but was seen by the hard core Labour grass roots as betraying the cause. The subsequent general election in 1931 was the biggest landslide in British political history with the Conservatives, now led by MacDonald... reducing Labour to 52 seats. In subsequent opposition the Labour Party stood for social reform and pacifism although the latter was dropped as a philosophical stance as the growing threat from Nazi Germany loomed over Europe.
In a single decade the UK saw the full blown parliamentary establishment of the Labour Party with sweeping social reforms and their borrowing to spend downfall driven by the collapse of the global and local economies, the peacetime intervention of the reigning monarch to stabilise the government and rise of the Nazis cumulating in the start of WW2.
An interesting perspective of the current relative storm in a political teacup perhaps.
The British Labour Party won the general election with 287 seats and 37% of the popular vote. It was the first time the Party was independently the largest in the commons. Margaret Bondfield was appointed as the first female cabinet minister; Minister for Labour. This Labour Party was strong and radical, driving positive social change by improving wages, unemployment pay and passing the housing act to focus on slums.
Disaster was to strike soon after though with the Wall Street crash and the Great Depression. Unemployment hit 2.5 million which was a huge number given the population. The impact on the economy as global trade collapsed was significant and the Labour Party could not align behind a single way forward out of the crisis with the cabinet being deeply spilt over social spending cuts, trade tariffs and eventually a run on the pound and a confidence crises caused the government to resign.
Interestingly the crisis caused King George V to step in and demand the formation of a “National Government” consisting of cross party representation. MacDonald formed a three party coalition with the Tories and Liberal but was seen by the hard core Labour grass roots as betraying the cause. The subsequent general election in 1931 was the biggest landslide in British political history with the Conservatives, now led by MacDonald... reducing Labour to 52 seats. In subsequent opposition the Labour Party stood for social reform and pacifism although the latter was dropped as a philosophical stance as the growing threat from Nazi Germany loomed over Europe.
In a single decade the UK saw the full blown parliamentary establishment of the Labour Party with sweeping social reforms and their borrowing to spend downfall driven by the collapse of the global and local economies, the peacetime intervention of the reigning monarch to stabilise the government and rise of the Nazis cumulating in the start of WW2.
An interesting perspective of the current relative storm in a political teacup perhaps.
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