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Khaki Election

Khaki Election

A khaki election is a term in British political history. It refers to the British general election of 1900, in which the Conservative Party government of Lord Salisbury was returned to office with an increased majority over the Liberal Party. The reason for this rather bizarre name is that the issues of the election were overshowed completely by the issue of the 2nd Boer War, as "khaki" was the colour of the relatively new military uniform of the British army that had been universally adopted in the Second Boer War. A "khaki election" is now therefore any national election which is heavily influenced by wartime or postwar sentiment. The term was later used about two later British elections, the 1918 general election, fought at the end of World War I and resulting in the huge victory of David Lloyd George's wartime coalition government, and the 1945 general election, fought at the end of World War II.

Khaki election, 1900

This was the first time a government increased its majority whilst in power since 1865 and the Unionists (the Conservatives of the time often being called Unionists to show their opposition to Irish home rule) have often been accused of exploiting patriotic sentiment arising from the Second Boer War. This is enforced by the fact that the Unionists had a further two years left of power before another election had to be held (in this period a government could stay in power for seven years before calling another election). At this point the Second Boer War created great support for the Unionists as it was young and seemed to be going well. The Liberals had been divided on the issue; some promoted the war, some protested against it and the majority supported it but were critical of the government's handeling of it. This badly weakened the Liberal party and made them an easy target for the Unionists in 1900. However, the war would go on for a further two years and would turn into a humiliation partially contributing to the Conservatives spectacular defeat in 1906 (though this is mainly attributable to a Unionist split over free trade and tariff reform). Category:United Kingdom general elections

United Kingdom general election, 1900

The UK general election of 1900 was from 25th September — 24th October 1900. Also known as the Khaki Election (the first of several elections to bear this sobriquet), it was held in the midst of the return of soldiers from the Boer War. The Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, secured a large majority, despite securing only slightly more votes than Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Liberals. This was largely due to the Conservatives winning 163 uncontested seats. The Labour Representation Committee, later to become the Labour Party, participated in a general election for the first time. This was the first time Winston Churchill was elected to the House of Commons. He had stood in the same seat, Oldham, in a by-election the previous year, but had lost. |{

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party is the largest political party on the right-of-centre in the United Kingdom. It is descended from the Tory Party and its members are still commonly referred to as Tories. Its current leader is David Cameron, who as Leader of the Opposition heads the Shadow Cabinet. The Conservatives were the governing party in the United Kingdom on many occasions between 1834 and 1997. The last Conservative Prime Minister was John Major. Since losing the 1997 election to the Labour Party under Tony Blair, they have been in opposition. The Tories are a member of the International Democrat Union and its European section. Within the European Parliament they are members of an informal bloc called the European Democrats (ED), which sits in a coalition arrangement with the EPP as the EPP-ED group. Cameron has announced his intention to end the partnership between the Eurosceptic and Conservative ED and the more Europhillic and Christian Democratic EPP, although this move has been opposed by some in the party.

Name

The Party's official name, registered with the UK Electoral Commission but rarely used outside Scotland and Northern Ireland, is The Conservative and Unionist Party. This formal name is a hangover from the 1912 merger with the Liberal Unionist Party, and an echo of the party's defence (1886-1921) of what they then saw as the need to maintain the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. During this period the party and its allies were often referred to as the "Unionist Party". Following the establishment of the Irish Free State, "Conservative" came back into prominence, though "Unionist" remained, referring to the Party's support for British sovereignty in Northern Ireland in opposition to Irish nationalist and republican aspirations. For many years the Ulster Unionist Party supported the Conservatives in the House of Commons and took the Conservative whip. This arrangement broke down in the aftermath of the imposition of direct rule in Northern Ireland in 1972.

Symbol and slogan

The electoral symbol of the Conservative party is a hand holding a torch. Its present motto, adopted by the Party on 6 December 2005, is Change to Win – Win for Britain. This replaces the previous slogan, Today's Britain Tomorrow's Conservatives

Conservative Party today

2005 Since 1922, only the Conservative Party and Labour Party have been in government and official opposition. Since 1997, the Conservative Party has been in opposition to the Labour Party, led by Tony Blair. Although there are nine political parties represented in the House of Commons, three dominate the house. As of 7 May 2005, Labour holds a 66-member majority in the house, with 356 Members of Parliament. The Conservatives come in second with 198 Members of Parliament and the Liberal Democrats follow with 62 Members of Parliament. Conservative leaders since 1997 have faced difficulties in returning the party to being a serious contender for government. John Major's successor, William Hague, resigned after a second landslide defeat in 2001. Iain Duncan Smith, the leader after 2001, was deposed in a vote of no confidence in 2003, to be followed by Michael Howard. Howard reduced the Labour majority at the 2005 general election, but the day after the poll he announced that he would resign "sooner rather than later", citing his age as the principal reason for his resignation. The party had only marginally increased its share of the vote to 32.3%. In December of 2005 David Cameron was elected leader of the party, defeating David Davis in a ballot of the nationwide party membership. In choosing David Cameron the Conservatives have chosen a leader with an aristocratic background for the first time since Sir Alec Douglas-Home was leader in 1964. Like Home, his predecessor Harold MacMillan and Macmillan's predecessor Anthony Eden Cameron was educated at Eton College and like them he is from a privileged upper class background.

Policies

Conservative Party policies are generally supportive of reduced government intervention in the economic sphere (e.g. through tax cuts and privatisations) and increased government intervention in the social or cultural sphere (e.g. through the 'defence' of the traditional family and through restrictions on immigration). They are also noted for their Eurosceptic stance. Many commentators believe that their post-1997 failure in UK politics is partly the result of continued internal tension between Europhiles (such as Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine) and Eurosceptics (such as John Redwood and William Hague). However, the Conservative party have in recent years come to terms with these issues, and even the archetypal pro-European, Kenneth Clarke, has reluctantly accepted the party line on Europe. Conservatives are also generally opposed to devolution to the regions of the UK, prefering a unitary centralised state. They opposed devolution to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in 1999, as well as the unsuccessful attempt at devolution of power to the North of England in 2004.

Economic policy

During much of the twentieth century the Conservative Party was considered the "natural party of government", a position founded upon the party's reputation for pragmatism and economic competence. The contrast with Labour's perceived poor twentieth-century record remained strong, even as the Conservative governments of the 1980s presided over mass unemployment (peaking at 11% in 1986) on a scale which had not been seen since the 1930s. The party's economic reputation was, however, dealt a fatal blow by the 1992 Black Wednesday debacle, in which billions of pounds were wasted trying to keep the pound within the European ERM system of exchange rates at an overvalued rate. This, combined with the recession of the early 1990s, allowed Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to claim from the Conservatives the mantle of economic competence. Many on both the left and right have since argued that New Labour's embrace of market forces and public sector modernisation amounted to little more than stealing the Conservative Party's economic clothes, and this has irked many Conservatives. As a result of the dominance of the Labour Party in debates over economic policy, recent Conservative election campaigns have focused much more on social or cultural issues such as crime, immigration and asylum. The party has even felt it necessary to commit to matching Labour spending plans - a reverse of the situation in 1997.

Social policy

The Conservative Party has historically been associated with social conservatism, views which have often been reflected in the party's social policies. One of the more controversial examples of Conservative social conservatism was Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which outlawed "the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". This legislation was regarded by many as homophobic, and is seen to have driven many liberal-minded individuals away from the party (most notably former Conservative MP Shaun Woodward, who defected to Labour in 1999 after William Hague sacked him from the shadow cabinet for refusing to support Section 28 in a parliamentary vote). Many Conservative modernisers have claimed that the traditional and authoritarian nature of past Conservative social policies has played a major role in the decline of the party in the 1990s and 2000s. For example, David Willetts has criticised what he termed "the war on single parents", whilst former Conservative Party Chairman Brian Mawhinney observed that the party had "created the impression that if you weren't in a traditional nuclear family, then we weren't interested in you". Since 1997, a debate has therefore raged within the party between modernisers such as Michael Portillo, who believe that the Conservatives should change their social views in line with 21st century Britain, and traditionalists such as William Hague and David Davis, who argue that the party should stick to its traditional conservative social agenda. The Conservative Party grassroots have pushed in the latter direction, helping the right wing of the party win many of these political battles. This famously resulted in William Hague's and Michael Howard's pre-election swings to the right (in 2001 and 2005, respectively), and the election of the stop-Ken Clarke candidate Iain Duncan Smith in 2001. Theresa May famously remarked that the result of all this was that the Conservatives were perceived as "the nasty party". One area in which the battle for the soul of the party was visible was the party's position on ID cards. At first it was hesitant to oppose a measure that some consider valuable in the fight against crime and terrorism. However, before the 2005 election, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis decided to position himself against the introduction of ID cards. He followed Michael Howard's original line that they were a good idea, but showed caution in the House of Commons when they were debated. At the same time, he argued within the Shadow Cabinet that escalating cost estimates and the need to protect libertarian values meant that the proposals should be opposed. Subsequently, the party altered its line, first allowing a free vote on ID cards and then opposing them outright. This was viewed by some as a victory for Davis, and a useful means for him to attempt to reach out to liberal Conservatives before the subsequent Conservative leadership election. The 2005 election saw the first black Conservative MP, Adam Afriyie, elected in Windsor. This contrasts positively with the situation in Cheltenham thirteen years earlier, when the black Conservative candidate John Taylor was defeated defending a Conservative seat, allegedly due to the unwillingness of local Conservatives voters to support a non-white candidate. Conservative modernisers point to Afriyie's election as evidence that the party is changing, though opponents argue that the election of a single black MP in what is essentially a safe seat doesn't count for much against the anti-immigration campaign fought by the Conservatives in 2005.

Foreign Policy

No policy area has divided the Conservative party more than foreign affairs in the post war era, in particular the Party position over Europe. The principal architect of Britain’s entry into the Common Market (later European Community and European Union ) was Edward Heath but his consistently pro-Europe position in the 1960s and 1970s was opposed by Enoch Powell and others. Divisions grew under John Major’s premiership (1990-1997) when the parliamentary party’s factionalism over Europe seriously weakened the Prime Minister’s position. More recently the position of those who favour closer ties with Europe (e.g. including Britain’s adoption of the single currency, the Euro) has been diluted as the party leadership has been increasingly Eurosceptic. David Cameron, who defeated the pro-Europe Kenneth Clarke in the leadership election of 2005, continues this position, supported by his equally Eurosceptic Foreign Affairs spokesman William Hague. Historically the Conservative party has taken a broadly Atlanticist stance in relations with the United States favouring close ties with, and offering support to, America. Under Margaret Thatcher this reached its height and she built a close relationship with the American President Ronald Reagan. More recently these links have been weaker and recent party leaders have failed to establish even cordial relations with George Bush who had himself established close ties with Tony Blair. However David Cameron and his supporters have openly supported the neoconservative political positions of George Bush and it is likely that the Conservative party will seek to rebuild their historic links with the American Republican Party in the run up to the next British General Election.

History

Main articles: History of the Conservative Party and Leaders of the Conservative Party The origins of the Conservative Party go back to the Tory faction of 1678-1681 which opposed the exclusion of the Duke of York, later King James VII&II, from the order of succession to the throne. The term 'Conservative' was first used by George Canning in the 1820s and was suggested as a title for the party by John Wilson Croker in the 1830s and later officially adopted, but the party is still often referred to as the 'Tory Party' (not least because newspaper editors find it a convenient shorthand when space is limited). The Tories more often than not formed the government from the accession of King George III (in 1760) until the Great Reform Act of 1832. Widening of the franchise in the 19th century led the party to popularise its approach, especially under Benjamin Disraeli who carried through his own Reform Act in 1868. After 1886 the Conservatives allied with Liberals who opposed their party's support for Irish Home Rule and held office for all but three of the following twenty years, but when it split over tariff reform, the party suffered a landslide election defeat. World War I saw an all-party coalition and the Conservatives then stayed in Coalition with half of the Liberals for four years after the armistice. Eventually, grassroots pressure forced the breakup of the Coalition and the party regained power on its own. It again dominated the political scene in the inter-war period, from 1931 in a 'National Government' coalition. However in the 1945 general election the party lost power in a landslide to the Labour Party. After the end of the Second World War, the Conservatives accepted the reality of the Labour government's nationalisation programme and creation of the 'welfare state', but when it returned to power promoted an economic boom, under Winston Churchill and later Harold Macmillan, which led back to prosperity in the 1950s. The Heath government of 1970-74 was notable for taking Britain into the EEC, a decision which would have a significant effect on the party over subsequent decades. In 1975 Margaret Thatcher became leader and converted it to support a monetarist economic programme; after her election victory in 1979 her government became known for a free-market approach and privatisation of public utilities. Here, the Conservatives experienced a high-point, Thatcher leading the Conservatives to two landslide election victories in 1983 and 1987. However, she was deeply unpopular in some sections of society, initially for the massive unemployment caused by the economic reforms, and later for what was seen as a heavy-handed response to the Miners' strike, and for her introduction of the Community Charge, known by its opponents as the poll tax and repealed within a year or two in favour of the council tax, essentially the previous rates system by another name. However, Thatcher's increasing unpopularity and unwillingness to change policies perceived as vote-losing, together with internal tensions over European policy, led to her being deposed in 1990. She was replaced by John Major who won an unexpected election victory in 1992. Major's government suffered a political blow when the Pound Sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism later that year, which lost the party much of its reputation for good financial stewardship. An effective opposition campaign by the Labour Party led to a landslide defeat in 1997. William Hague (1997 - 2001) portrayed himself at first as a moderniser with a common touch. However by the time the 2001 general election came he concentrated on Europe, asylum seekers and tax cuts whilst declaring that only the Conservative Party could "Save the Pound". He was seen as a political lightweight by many, and was widely mocked for his claim that he drank 14 imperial pints (8 l) of beer in a day in his youth. Despite a low turnout, the election resulted in a net gain of a single seat for the Conservative Party and William Hague's resignation as party leader. Iain Duncan Smith (2001-2003) (often known as IDS) was a strong Eurosceptic but this did not define his leadership - indeed it was during his tenure that Europe ceased to be an issue of division in the party as it united behind calls for a referendum on the proposed European Union Constitution. Duncan Smith's Shadow Cabinet contained many new and unfamiliar faces but despite predictions by some that the party would lurch to the right the team instead followed a pragmatic moderate approach to policy. After losing a vote of confidence, Duncan Smith remained as caretaker leader until Michael Howard, MP for Folkestone and Hythe, was elected to the post of leader (as the only candidate) on 6 November 2003. Howard announced radical changes to the way the Shadow Cabinet would work. He slashed the number of members by half, with Theresa May and Tim Yeo each shadowing two government departments. Minor departments still have shadows but have been removed from the cabinet, and the post of Shadow Leader of the House of Commons was abolished. The role of party chairman was also split into two, with Lord Saatchi responsible for the party machine, and Liam Fox handling publicity. Michael Portillo was offered a position but refused, due to his plans to step down from Parliament at the next election. In the 2005 general election, the Conservative Party made a partial recovery, increasing their share of the vote by around 0.6% (up to 32.3%). However, due to a tactical unwind by Liberal Democrat voters (many of whom were no longer willing to back the Labour party in Labour vs. Conservative marginal seats), the Conservatives made a net gain of 33 seats. This helped slash the Labour majority from 167 seats down to 66. The day after, on May 6, Howard announced that he believed himself too old to lead the party into another election campaign, and he would therefore be stepping down to allow a new leader the time to prepare for the next election. Howard said that he believed that the party needed to amend the rules governing the election of the Party leader, and that he would allow time for that to happen before resigning. See Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 2005 The campaign has received [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19809-1604717,00.html criticism] from its main financial backer, Michael Spencer. In an interview with The Times Tim Collins claims the reasons the party won more seats will not or may not be repeated in the next general election:
- Unpopularity of Tony Blair which helped the Liberal Democrats and hence the Conservative Party in close fights.
- Labour's campaign in their marginal seats was poor. David Cameron (6th December 2005 - ) was victorious, in the competition against David Davis, as the new Tory leader. He beat his rival David Davis by a margin of more than two to one, taking 134,446 votes to 64,398. He became the fourth leader of his party since 1997 to take on Tony Blair and after the result was announced, spoke to supporters without notes, delivering a passionate rallying cry. The ballot result was declared at London's Royal Academy of Arts by Sir Michael Spicer, chairman of the Tory MPs' backbench 1922 committee. David Cameron was elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Witney constituency in West Oxfordshire in June 2001.(Source scotsman.co.uk online newspaper and davidcameronmp.com)

Internal Factions

There are three main political factions within the modern Conservative Party: One Nation Conservatives were the dominant faction for most of the post-war era, providing Conservative Prime Ministers such as Harold MacMillan (1957-1963) and Edward Heath (1970-1974). The name comes from a famous phrase of Benjamin Disraeli and the basis of One Nation Conservatism is a belief in social cohesion, and advocates therefore support social institutions that maintain harmony between people of different classes (and more recently, people of different races or religions). These institutions have typically included the welfare state, the BBC, and local government. One Nation Conservatives are usually seen as being socially liberal, since tolerance is viewed as an important factor in social cohesion. Many are also supporters of the European Union, perhaps stemming from an extension of the cohesion principle to the international level, though some are strongly hostile to the EU. Prominent One Nation Conservatives in the modern party include Kenneth Clarke, Malcolm Rifkind and Damian Green, and the faction is associated with the internal pressure group, the Tory Reform Group. The Thatcherite wing of the party achieved dominance after the election of Margaret Thatcher as party leader in 1975. The Thatcherite political agenda is mainly concerned with reducing the role of the government in the economy, and to this end they support tax cuts, privatisation of public services and a reduction in the size of the welfare state. Though Thatcher herself was socially conservative, her supporters harbour a range of social opinions from the liberal views of Michael Portillo to the traditional conservatism of William Hague and David Davis. Thatcherites are Eurosceptic, since they view many European regulations as unwelcome interference in the market. Many take inspiration from Thatcher's famous anti-EU Bruges speech in 1988, in which she declared that "we have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level". Thatcherites also tend to be atlanticist, dating back to the close friendship between Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan. The so-called Faith, Flag and Family wing are the third main element within the Conservative Party. This faction's name is drawn from its support for three British social institutions: the established Church, the unitary British state and the traditional family. To this end, they emphasise Britain's Protestant heritage, they oppose any transfer of power away from the state (either downwards to the nations and regions or upwards to the European Union), and they are highly critical of homosexuals, single parents and other non-traditional family groupings. They are strongly opposed to immigration into the UK, and some have in the past professed racist opinions. They also are known for their support for capital punishment. Prominent MPs from this wing of the party include Andrew Rosindell and Edward Leigh. It should be noted that this faction has never been particularly strong within the parliamentary party, although its strength within the rank-and-file party membership means that it wields considerable power over Conservative social policy. Gay Conservative MP Alan Duncan famously once referred to this wing as a "Taleban tendency" within the party. Historically, many Conservatives from this faction were members of the Monday Club, and more recently they have participated in the Cornerstone Group. Note that not all Conservative MPs can be easily placed within these three groupings. For example, John Major was the ostensibly "Thatcherite" candidate during the 1990 leadership election, but he consistently promoted One Nation Conservatives to the higher reaches of his cabinet during his time as Prime Minister. These included Kenneth Clarke (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Michael Heseltine (Deputy Prime Minister), two of the architects of Thatcher's downfall.

Associated groups

Full list is at: List of organisations associated with the British Conservative Party
- Bow Group
- Cchange
- Centre for Policy Studies
- Conservative Research Department
- Conservative Way Forward
- Cornerstone Group
- European Foundation
- Tory Reform Group
- Monday Club
- Selsdon Group

Sleaze

A number of political scandals in the 1980s and 1990s created the impression of what is described in the British press as "sleaze": a perception that the Conservatives were associated with political corruption and hypocrisy. In particular, the successful entrapment of Graham Riddick and David Tredinnick in the "cash for questions" scandal, the contemporaneous misconduct as a minister by Neil Hamilton (who lost a consequent libel action against The Guardian), and the convictions of former Cabinet member Jonathan Aitken and former party deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer for perjury in two separate cases leading to custodial sentences damaged the Conservatives' public reputation. Persistent unsubstantiated rumours about the activities of the party treasurer Michael Ashcroft did not help this impression. At the same time, a series of revelations about the private lives of various Conservative politicians grabbed the headlines, and both the media and the party's opponents made little attempt to clarify the distinction between financial conduct and private lives. John Major's "Back to Basics" campaign backfired because of media focus on its moral aspects, where they exposed "sleaze" within the Conservative Party and, most damagingly, within the Cabinet itself. A number of ministers were then revealed to have committed sexual indiscretions, and Major was forced by media pressure to dismiss them. In September 2002 it was revealed that, prior to his promotion to the cabinet, Major had himself had a longstanding extramarital affair with a fellow MP, Edwina Currie. However, more recently controversies arising in the Labour Party such as David Blunkett's affair with Spectator editor Kimberly Fortier has led many to believe that sleaze is not only endemic to the Conservative Party but to British Politics as a whole. A relationship between length of office and the level of "sleaze" within Government may be apparent with all British Political Parties.

See also


- List of Conservative Party politicians
- Leaders of the Conservative Party
- Chairman of the Conservative Party
- Conservative Central Office
- British politics
- Thatcherism
- Euroscepticism
- UK topics
- Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (UK) (current Conservative front bench)

Further reading


- Geoffrey Wheatcroft (2005), The Strange Death of Tory England

External links

Official Party sites


- [http://www.conservatives.com/ The Conservative Party]
- [http://www.scottishtories.org.uk/ The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party]
- [http://www.conservatives.com/wales/ Welsh Conservatives]
- [http://www.conservativesni.com/ Conservatives in Northern Ireland]
- [http://www.conservativefuture.com/ Conservative Future] - party youth wing

Internal party policy groups


- [http://www.bowgroup.org.uk The Bow Group]
- [http://www.conwayfor.org Conservative Way Forward]
- [http://www.trg.org.uk The Tory Reform Group]

Other


- [http://www.conservative-party.net/ An archive of Conservative electoral manifestos from 1900-present and a directory of Conservative Party websites, including constituency associations]
- [http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/ Guardian Unlimited Politics - Special Report: Conservative Party]
- [http://search.looksmart.com/p/browse/us1/us317836/us552286/us526499/us526505/us10234373/us703545/us671216/us671220/ LookSmart - Conservative Party] directory category
- [http://www.spectator.co.uk/ The Spectator] Often called the Conservative Party "house journal", although not officially affiliated to the party
- [http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Society_and_Culture/Politics/Parties/Conservative/ Open Directory Project - Conservative Party] directory category
- [http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/United_Kingdom/Government/Politics/Parties/Conservative_Party/ Yahoo! - Conservative Party] directory category
- Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Guardian , June 21, 2005, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1510906,00.html "I said the Tories were dead. It was an understatement: Since the election the party has made every available mistake"]
- [http://www.thatcherite.blogspot.com/ David Stewart - British Conservative] An interesting look at the Conservative party, a good place to get both lighthearted and serious political talk.
- Category:Political parties in the United Kingdom Category:Northern Ireland political parties Category:International Democrat Union ja:保守党 (イギリス)

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

The Most Honourable Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC (3 February 1830–22 August 1903), known as Lord Robert Cecil before 1865 and as Viscount Cranborne from 1865 until 1868, was a British statesman and Prime Minister.

Life

Lord Robert Cecil was the second son of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury. After an unhappy childhood, in which he studied at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, he went into politics, entering the House of Commons as a Conservative in 1853. In 1857, Cecil married Georgina Alderson, a woman of low social standing, in spite of his father's objections. The marriage proved a happy one, producing five sons and two daughters. In 1866 Cecil, now called Viscount Cranborne (due to the death of his older brother), entered the third government of Lord Derby as Secretary of State for India, but resigned the next year over the Reform Bill, which he opposed. In 1868, on the death of his father, he inherited the Marquessate of Salisbury, thereby becoming a member of the House of Lords. In 1900 Salisbury was worth £6.56 million, about £374 million in 2005. He returned to government in 1874, serving once again as India Secretary in the government of Benjamin Disraeli. Gradually, Salisbury developed a good relationship with Disraeli, whom he had previously disliked and distrusted, at least partially due to the latter's Jewish origins. In 1878, Salisbury succeeded Lord Derby (son of the former Prime Minister) as Foreign Secretary, in time to help lead Britain to "peace with honour" at the Congress of Berlin. For this he was rewarded with the Order of the Garter. Following Disraeli's death in 1881, the Conservatives entered a period of turmoil. Salisbury became the leader of the Conservative members of the House of Lords though the overall leadership of the party was not formally allocated and so he struggled with the Commons leader Sir Stafford Northcote, a struggle in which Salisbury eventually emerged as the leading figure to become Prime Minister of a minority administration from 1885 to 1886. Although he was unable to accomplish much in this administration, due to his tenuous command over the Commons, the split of the Liberals over Irish Home Rule in 1886 enabled him to return to power with a parliamentary majority, and, with a short break (1892–1895) to serve as Prime Minister throughout the period from 1886 to 1902. Salisbury's expertise was in foreign affairs, and uncharacteristically, for most of his time as Prime Minister he served not as First Lord of the Treasury, the traditional position held by the Prime Minister, but as Foreign Secretary. In that capacity, he skillfully managed Britain's foreign affairs, famously pursuing a policy of "Splendid Isolation", while at home he staunchly opposed Irish Home Rule. Among the important events of his premierships was the Partition of Africa, culminating in the Fashoda Crisis and the Boer War. On July 11, 1902, Salisbury resigned from office due to ill health and heart-broken over his wife's death. He was succeeded by his nephew, Arthur James Balfour. Salisbury was the last peer to serve as Prime Minister, with the brief exception of the 14th Earl of Home who renounced his peerage within a few days of being appointed. When Salisbury died his estate was probated at 310,336 pounds sterling.

Family

Salisbury was the third son of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury, a minor Tory politician. He went against his father's wishes and married Georgina Alderson, the daughter of Sir Edward Alderson, a moderately notable jurist. Robert and Georgina had eight children, all but one of whom survived infancy.
- Lady Beatrix Cecil († 27 April 1950)
- Lady Gwendolen Cecil († 28 September 1945)
- Lady Fanny Cecil († 24 April 1867)
- James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury (23 October 1861–4 April 1947)
- Rupert Ernest William Gascoyne-Cecil (9 March 1863–23 June 1936)
- Edgar Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (14 September 1864–24 November 1958)
- Lord Edward Gascoyne-Cecil (12 July 1867–13 December 1918)
- Hugh Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood (14 October 1869–10 December 1956)

Lord Salisbury's First Government, July 1885–February 1886

1956
- Lord Salisbury – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Lords
- Lord Iddesleigh – First Lord of the Treasury
- Lord Halsbury – Lord Chancellor
- Lord Cranbrook – Lord President of the Council
- Lord Harrowby – Lord Privy Seal
- Sir Richard Assheton Cross – Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley – Secretary of State for the Colonies
- William Henry Smith – Secretary of State for War
- Lord Randolph Churchill – Secretary of State for India
- Lord George Hamilton – First Lord of the Admiralty
- Sir Michael Hicks Beach – Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons
- The Duke of Richmond – President of the Board of Trade
- Lord John Manners – Postmaster-General
- Lord Carnarvon – Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland
- Lord Ashbourne – Lord Chancellor of Ireland
- Edward Stanhope – Vice President of the Council

Changes


- August 1885 – The Duke of Richmond becomes Secretary for Scotland. Edward Stanhope succeeds him at the Board of Trade. Stanhope's successor as Vice President of the Council is not in the Cabinet.
- January, 1886 – The Lord-Lieutenantship of Ireland is put into commission. William Henry Smith becomes Chief Secretary for Ireland. Lord Cranbrook succeeds him as Secretary for War, while remaining Lord President.

Lord Salisbury's Second Government, August 1886–August 1892


- Lord Salisbury – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords
- Lord Halsbury – Lord Chancellor
- Lord Cranbrook – Lord President of the Council
- Lord Cadogan – Lord Privy Seal
- Henry Matthews – Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Lord Iddesleigh – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
- Edward Stanhope – Secretary of State for the Colonies
- William Henry Smith – Secretary of State for War
- Lord Cross – Secretary of State for India
- Lord George Hamilton – First Lord of the Admiralty
- Lord Randolph Churchill – Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons
- Lord Stanley of Preston – President of the Board of Trade
- Lord John Manners – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Sir Michael Hicks Beach – Chief Secretary for Ireland
- Arthur James Balfour – Secretary for Scotland

Cabinet after the reorganization of January, 1887


- Lord Salisbury – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Lords
- William Henry Smith – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons
- Lord Halsbury – Lord Chancellor
- Lord Cranbrook – Lord President of the Council
- Lord Cadogan – Lord Privy Seal
- Henry Matthews – Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Sir Henry Holland – Secretary of State for the Colonies
- Edward Stanhope – Secretary of State for War
- Lord Cross – Secretary of State for India
- Lord George Hamilton – First Lord of the Admiralty
- George Goschen – Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Lord Stanley of Preston – President of the Board of Trade
- Lord John Manners – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Arthur James Balfour – Chief Secretary for Ireland
- Charles Thomson Ritchie – President of the Local Government Board
- Sir Michael Hicks Beach – Minister without Portfolio

Further Changes


- February 1888 – Sir Michael Hicks Beach succeeds Lord Stanley of Preston as President of the Board of Trade
- 1889 – Henry Chaplin enters the Cabinet as President of the Board of Agriculture.
- October, 1891 – Arthur James Balfour succeeds William Henry Smith (deceased) as First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons. William Lawies Jackson succeeds him as Irish Secretary.

Lord Salisbury's Third Government, June 1895–July 1902


- Lord Salisbury – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Lords
- Arthur James Balfour – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons
- Lord Halsbury – Lord Chancellor
- The Duke of Devonshire – Lord President of the Council
- Lord Cross – Lord Privy Seal
- Sir Matthew White Ridley – Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Joseph Chamberlain – Secretary of State for the Colonies
- Lord Lansdowne – Secretary of State for War
- Lord George Hamilton – Secretary of State for India
- George Joachim Goschen – First Lord of the Admiralty
- Sir Michael Hicks Beach – Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Charles Thomson Ritchie – President of the Board of Trade
- Henry Chaplin – President of the Local Government Board
- Lord James of Hereford – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Aretas Akers-Douglas – First Commissioner of Works
- Lord Cadogan – Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland
- Lord Ashbourne – Lord Chancellor of Ireland
- Lord Balfour of Burleigh – Secretary for Scotland
- Walter Hume Long – President of the Board of Agriculture

Changes

November, 1900 – Complete reorganization of the ministry:
- Lord Salisbury – Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords
- Arthur James Balfour – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons
- Lord Halsbury – Lord Chancellor
- The Duke of Devonshire – Lord President of the Council
- Charles Thomson Ritchie – Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Lord Lansdowne – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
- Joseph Chamberlain – Secretary of State for the Colonies
- William St John Brodrick – Secretary of State for War
- Lord George Hamilton – Secretary of State for India
- Lord Selborne – First Lord of the Admiralty
- Sir Michael Hicks Beach – Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Gerald William Balfour – President of the Board of Trade
- Walter Hume Long – President of the Local Government Board
- Lord James of Hereford – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Aretas Akers-Douglas – First Commissioner of Works
- Lord Cadogan – Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland
- Lord Ashbourne – Lord Chancellor of Ireland
- Lord Balfour of Burleigh – Secretary for Scotland
- Robert William Hanbury – President of the Board of Agriculture

Further Reading

Andrew Roberts Salisbury: Victorian Titan (1999) Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party (the SDP) to form a new party which would become known as the Liberal Democrats. (nb. Some members of the Liberal Party - as with the SDP - disagreed with the merger, and formed the current Liberal Party, a minor party which claims to be a continuation of the old Liberal Party.)

Origins

Liberal Party The Liberal Party grew out of the Whig Party, which had its origins as an aristocratic faction in the reign of Charles II. The Whigs were in favour of reducing the power of the Crown and increasing the power of the Parliament, and although their motives in this were originally to gain more power for themselves, the more idealistic Whigs gradually came to support an expansion of democracy for its own sake. The great figures of reforming Whiggery were Charles James Fox (died 1806) and his disciple and successor Earl Grey. After decades in opposition the Whigs came to power under Grey in 1830, and carried the First Reform Act in 1832. The Reform Act was the climax of Whiggery, but also brought about the Whigs' demise. The admission of the middle classes to the franchise and to the House of Commons led eventually to the development of a systematic middle class liberalism and the end of Whiggery, although for many years reforming aristocrats held senior positions in the party. In the years after Grey's retirement the party was led first by Lord Melbourne, a fairly traditional Whig, and then by Lord John Russell, the son of a Duke but a crusading radical, and Lord Palmerston, a renegade Irish Tory and essentially a conservative, although capable of radical gestures. As early as 1839 Russell had adopted the name Liberal Party, but in reality the party was a loose coalition of Whigs in the House of Lords and Radicals in the Commons. The leading Radicals were John Bright and Richard Cobden, who represented the manufacturing towns which had gained representation under the Reform Act. They favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England (many of them were Nonconformists), avoidance of war and foreign alliances (which were bad for business), and above all free trade. For a century free trade was the one cause which could unite all Liberals. In 1841 the Liberals lost office to the Conservatives under Sir Robert Peel, but their period in opposition was short, because the Conservatives split over the repeal of the Corn Laws, a free trade issue, and a faction known as the Peelites (but not Peel himself, who died soon after), defected to the Liberal side. This allowed ministries led by Russell, Palmerston and the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to hold office for most of the 1850s and 1860s. The leading Peelite was William Ewart Gladstone, who was a zealous reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer in most of these governments. The formal foundation of the Liberal party is traditionally traced to 1859 and the formation of Palmerston's second government. The Whig-Radical amalgam could not become a true modern political party, however, while it was dominated by aristocrats, and it was not until the departure of the "Two Terrible Old Men", Russell and Palmerston, that Gladstone could become the first leader of the modern Liberal Party. This was brought about by Palmerston's death in 1865 and Russell's retirement in 1868. After a brief Conservative interlude (during which the Second Reform Act was passed by agreement between the parties), Gladstone won a huge victory at the 1868 election and formed the first Liberal government. The establishment of the party as a national membership organisation came with the foundation of the National Liberal Federation in 1877.

The Gladstonian era

1877 For the next thirty years Gladstone and Liberalism were synonymous. The "Grand Old Man", as he became known, was Prime Minister four times and the powerful flow of his rhetoric dominated British politics even when he was out of office. His rivalry with the Conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli became legendary. Gladstone was a High Church Anglican and enjoyed the company of aristocrats, but he grew more and more radical as he grew older: he was, as one wit put it, "a Tory in all but essentials". Queen Victoria, who had grown up as a Whig under the tutelage of Melbourne, became a Tory in reaction against Gladstone's moralising Liberalism. Gladstone's great achievements in office were his reforms to education, land reform (particularly in Ireland, where he ended centuries of landlord oppression), the disestablishment of the (Protestant) Church of Ireland, the introduction of democratic local government, the abolition of patronage in the civil service and the army, and the Third Reform Act which greatly extended democracy by giving the vote to almost all adult males. In foreign policy Gladstone was an anti-imperialist and an avoider of foreign entanglements, but even he found it hard to resist the imperialist ideology of Victorian Britain. In 1874 Gladstone was defeated by the Tories under Disraeli, mainly because of a sharp recession. He formally resigned as Liberal leader and was succeeded by the Marquess of Hartington, but he soon changed his mind and returned to active politics. He was appalled by Disraeli's pro-Ottoman foreign policy and during 1880 he conducted the first modern outdoor mass election campaign in Britain, known as the Midlothian campaign. In 1880 the Liberals won a huge election victory, and Hartington had no choice but to stand aside and allow Gladstone to resume office. Among the consequences of the Third Reform Act was giving the vote to the Catholic peasant masses of Ireland, and the consequent creation of an Irish Nationalist Party led by Charles Stewart Parnell. In 1885 this party won the balance of power in the House of Commons, and demanded Irish Home Rule (that is, the status of a self-governing Dominion for Ireland) as the price of support for a continued Gladstone ministry. Gladstone personally supported Home Rule, but a strong Liberal Unionist faction led by Joseph Chamberlain and the last of the Whig grandees, Hartington, bitterly opposed it. The result was a catastrophic split in the Liberal Party, and heavy defeat in the 1886 election at the hands of Lord Salisbury. There was a final weak Gladstone ministry in 1892, but it also was dependent on Irish support and broke up on the rocks of Irish Home Rule. Gladstone finally retired in 1894, and his ineffectual successor, Lord Rosebery, led the party to another heavy defeat in 1895. Gladstone had dominated the Liberal Party for so long that it was lost without him.

The Liberal Zenith

1895 The Liberals languished in opposition for a decade, while the coalition of Salisbury and Chamberlain held power and presided over the high noon of British imperialism. In 1900, led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman, they bravely opposed British policy in the Second Boer War, handing Salisbury a huge victory in the original "Khaki election". But with Salisbury's retirement in 1902 the Conservatives went into decline, and then split over the issue of free trade. In 1906 Campbell-Bannerman, rallying the party on a platform of free trade and land reform, led the Liberals to the greatest election victory in their history (this was the last time the Liberals won a majority in their own right). Campbell-Bannerman's ministry was one of the most brilliant in British history, although he himself was regarded as decent but rather dull. He was overshadowed by Herbert Henry Asquith at the Exchequer, Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, Richard Burdon Haldane at the War Office and David Lloyd George at the Board of Trade. In 1908 Campbell-Bannerman retired due to failing health and he was succeeded by Asquith, who stepped up the government's radicalism. Lloyd George succeeded Asquith at the Exchequer, and was in turn succeeded at the Board of Trade by Winston Churchill, a recent defector from the Conservatives. Between them they provided much of the government's drive. The Liberals pushed through numerous pioneering social reforms, such as regulation of working hours, national insurance and welfare, as well as the reform of the House of Lords. This latter issue led to a titanic struggle with the Lords, including two general elections in 1910, at which the Liberals retained power but lost their overall majority, being left once again dependent on the Irish Nationalists. As a result Asquith was forced to introduce a new Home Rule bill in 1912. Since the House of Lords no longer had the power to block the bill, the Unionists, led by Sir Edward Carson, launched a campaign of opposition that included the threat of armed resistance in Ulster, and by 1914 threatened to lead to a mutiny by army officers in Ireland (see Ulster crisis). In their threats of violent resistance to Home Rule the Ulster Protestants had the full support of the Conservatives, now led by an Ulsterman, Andrew Bonar Law. The country seemed to be on the brink of civil war when World War I broke out in August 1914. The war struck at the heart of everything British Liberals believed in. Several Cabinet ministers resigned, and Asquith, the master of domestic politics, proved a poor war leader. Lloyd George and Churchill, however, were zealous supporters of the war, and gradually forced the old pacifist Liberals out. The poor British performance in the early months of the war forced Asquith to invite the Conservatives into a coalition (on May 17, 1915). This marked the end of the last all-Liberal government. This coalition fell apart at the end of 1916, when the Conservatives refused to support Asquith any longer and gave their support instead to Lloyd George, who became Prime Minister at the head of a coalition government largely made up of Conservatives. Asquith and his followers moved to the opposition benches in Parliament and the Liberal Party was once again split.

Liberal decline

1916 In the 1918 general election Lloyd George, "the Man who Won the War", led his coalition into another khaki election, and won a sweeping victory over the Asquithian Liberals and the newly-emerging Labour Party. Lloyd George and the Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law wrote a joint letter of support to candidates to indicate they were considered the official Coalition candidates - this "coupon" as it became known was issued against many sitting Liberal MPs, often to devastating effect, though not against Asquith himself. Asquith and most of his colleagues lost their seats. Lloyd George still claimed to be leading a Liberal government, but he was increasingly a prisoner of the Conservatives. In 1922 the Conservative backbenchers rebelled against the continuation of the coalition in general, citing in particular the Chanak Crisis over Turkey and Lloyd George's corrupt sale of honours amongst other grievances, and Lloyd George was forced to resign. The Conservatives came back to power under Bonar Law and then Stanley Baldwin. At the 1922 and 1923 elections the Liberals won barely a third of the vote and a quarter of the seats in the House of Commons as many radical voters abandoned the divided Liberals and went over to Labour. In 1922 Labour became the official opposition. A reunion of the two warring factions took place in 1923 when the new Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin committed his party to protective tariffs, causing the Liberals to reunite in support of free trade. The party gained ground in the 1923 general election but ominously made most of its gains from Conservatives whilst losing ground to Labour - a sign of the party's direction for many years to come. The party remained the third largest in the House of Commons but the Conservatives had lost their majority. There was much speculation and fear about the prospect of a Labour government, but comparatively little about a Liberal government, even though it could have plausibly presented an experienced team of ministers compared to Labour's almost complete lack of experience as well as offering a middle ground that could get support from both Conservatives and Labour in crucial Commons divisions. But instead of trying to force the opportunity to form a Liberal government, Asquith decided instead to allow Labour the chance of office in the belief that they would prove incompetent and this would set the stage for a revival of Liberal fortunes at Labour's expenses. It was a fatal error. Labour was determined to destroy the Liberals and become the sole party of the left. When Ramsay MacDonald was forced into a snap election in 1924, and although his government was defeated, he achieved his objective of virtually wiping the Liberals out as many more radical voters now moved to Labour whilst moderate middle-class Liberal voters concerned about socialism moved to the Conservatives. The Liberals were reduced to a mere forty seats in Parliament, only seven of which had been won against candidates from both parties and none of these formed a coherent area of Liberal survival. The party seemed finished and during this period some Liberals, such as Churchill, went over to the Conservatives, while others went over to Labour. (Several Labour ministers of later generations, such as Michael Foot and Tony Benn, were the sons of Liberal MPs). Asquith died in 1926 and the enigmatic figure of Lloyd George returned to the leadership and began a drive to produce coherent policies on many key issues of the day. In the 1929 general election he made a final bid to return the Liberals to the political mainstream, with an ambitious programme of state stimulation of the economy called We Can Conquer Unemployment!, largely written for him by the Liberal economist John Maynard Keynes. The Liberals gained ground, but once again it was at the Conservatives' expense whilst also losing seats to Labour. Indeed the urban areas of the country suffering heavily from unemployment, which might have been expected to respond the most to the radical economic policies of the Liberals instead gave the party its worst results. By contrast most of the party's seats were won either due to the absence of a candidate from one of the other parties or in rural areas on the "Celtic fringe", where local evidence suggests that economic ideas were at best peripheral to the electorate's concerns. The Liberals now found themselves with 59 members holding the balance of power in a Parliament where Labour was the largest party but lacked an overall majority. Lloyd George offered a degree of support to the Labour government in the hope of winning concessions, including a degree of electoral reform to introduce the alternative vote, but this support was to prove bitterly divisive as the Liberals increasingly divided between those seeking to gain what Liberal goals they could achieve, those who preferred a Conservative government to a Labour one and vice-versa. In 1931 MacDonald's government fell apart under the impact of the Great Depression, and the Liberals agreed to join his National Government, which was dominated by the Conservatives. Lloyd George however was ill and did not join himself. Soon, however, the Liberals faced another divisive crisis when it was proposed to fight the 1931 general election as a National Government and seek a mandate for tariffs. From outside the government Lloyd George called for the party to abandon the government completely in defence of free trade, but only a few MPs and candidates followed him, most of them related to him. Another group under Sir John Simon emerged who were prepared to continue their support for the government and take the Liberal places in the Cabinet if there were resignations. The third group under Sir Herbert Samuel pressed for the parties in government to fight the election on separate platforms. In doing so the bulk of Liberals remained supporting the government, but two distinct Liberal groups had emerged within this bulk - the National Liberals led by Simon, also known as "Simonites", and the "Samuelites" or "official Liberals" led by Samuel who remained as the official party. Both groups secured about 35 MPs but proceeded to diverge even further after the election, with the National Liberals remaining supporters of the government throughout its life. There were to be a succession of discussions about them rejoining the Liberals but these usually foundered on the issues of free trade and continued support for the National Government and came to little (though in 1946 the Liberal and National Liberal party organisations in London did merge). The official Liberals found themselves a tiny minority within a government committed to protectionism. Slowly they found this issue to be one they could not support in any way. In early 1932 it was agreed to suspend the principle of collective responsibility to allow the Liberals to oppose the introduction of tariffs. Later in 1932 the Liberals resigned their ministerial posts over the introduction of the Ottawa Agreement on Imperial Preference. However they remained sitting on the government benches supporting it in Parliament, though in the country local Liberal activists bitterly opposed the government. Finally in late 1933 the Liberals crossed the floor of the House of Commons and went into complete opposition. By this point their number of MPs was severely depleted. In the 1935 general election, just 17 Liberal MPs were elected, along with Lloyd George and three followers as "independent Liberals". Immediately after the election the two groups reunited, though Lloyd George declined to play much of a formal role in his old party. However over the next ten years there would be further defections as MPs deserted to either the National Liberals or Labour. There were however a few recruits, such as Clement Davies, who had deserted to the National Liberals in 1931 but now returned to the party during the Second World War and who would lead it after the war. Samuel had lost his seat in the 1935 election and the leadership of the party fell to Sir Archibald Sinclair. With many traditional domestic Liberal policies now regarded as irrelevant, he focused the part on opposition to both the rise of Fascism in Europe and the appeasement foreign policy of the British government, arguing that intervention was needed, in contrast to the Labour calls for pacifism. Despite the party's weaknesses, Sinclair gained a high profile as he sought to recall the Midlothian Campaign and once more revitalise the Liberals as the party of a strong foreign policy. In 1940 they joined Churchill's wartime coalition government, with Sinclair serving as Secretary of State for Air, the last British Liberal to hold Cabinet rank office. However it was a sign of the party's lack of importance that they were not included in the War Cabinet. At the 1945 general election, however, Sinclair and many of his colleagues lost their seats to both Conservatives and Labour. By 1951 there were only six MPs, all but one of them were aided by the Conservatives not putting up a candidate. In 1957 this total fell to five when one of their MPs died and the subsequent by-election was lost to the Labour Party, who fielded the former Liberal Deputy Leader Lady Megan Lloyd George as their candidate. The Liberal Party seemed close to extinction. During this low period, it was often joked that Liberal MP's could hold meetings in the back of one taxi.

Liberal revival

Through the 1950s and into the 1960s the Liberals survived only because a handful of constituencies in rural Scotland and Wales clung to their Liberal traditions, whilst in two English towns, Bolton and Huddersfield local Liberals and Conservatives agreed to each contest only one of the town's two seats. Jo Grimond, for example, who became Liberal leader in 1956, was MP for the remote Orkney and Shetland islands. Under his leadership a Liberal revival began, marked by the famous Orpington by-election of March 1962 which was won by Eric Lubbock, in which the Liberals won a seat in the London suburbs for the first time since 1935. The Liberals became the first of the major British political parties to advocate British membership of the European Economic Community. Grimond also sought an intellectual revival of the party, seeking to position it as a non-socialist radical alternative to the Conservative government of the day. In particular he appealed to the new university students and graduates in the post-war world, appealing to younger voters in a way that many of his recent predecessors had failed to do so, asserting a new strand of Liberalism for the post war world. The postwar middle class suburban generation began to find the Liberals' policies attractive again, and under Grimond and his successor, Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberals regained the status of a serious third force in British politics, polling up to 20% of the vote but unable to break the duopoly of Labour and Conservative and win more than fourteen seats in the Commons. An additional problem was competition in the Liberal heartlands in Scotland and Wales from the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru who both grew as electoral forces from the 1960s onwards. In the February 1974 general election the Conservative government of Edward Heath lost its overall majority. The Liberals now held the balance of power in the Commons. Heath offered Thorpe the Home Office if he would join a coalition government with Heath. Thorpe was personally in favour, but the party insisted on a clear government commitment to introducing proportional representation and a change of Prime Minister. The former was unacceptable to Heath's Cabinet and the latter to Heath personally and so the talks collapsed. Instead a minority Labour government was formed under Harold Wilson but with no formal support from Thorpe. In the October 1974 general election the Liberals slipped back slightly and the Labour government won a very slender majority. Thorpe was subsequently forced to resign in a sordid sex scandal. The party's new leader, David Steel negotiated the Lib-Lab Pact with the new Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, whereby the Liberals would support the government in crucial votes in exchange for some influence over policy. This pact lasted from 1977-1978 but proved relatively fruitless as the Liberals' key demand of proportional representation was anathema to most Labour MPs whilst the contacts between Liberal spokespersons and Labour ministers often proved detrimental, such as between finance spokesperson John Pardoe and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey who did not get on at all. When the Labour government fell in 1979, the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher won a landslide victory which pushed the Liberals back into the margins. In 1981 defectors from the moderate wing of the Labour Party, led by former Cabinet ministers Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Shirley Williams, founded the Social Democratic Party. The two parties fought the 1983 and 1987 general elections jointly as the SDP-Liberal Alliance. During 1982 and 1983, at the depths of Labour's fortunes under Michael Foot, there was much talk of the Alliance becoming the dominant party of the left and even of Jenkins becoming Prime Minister. In fact, while the Alliance won over 20% of the vote each time, it never made the hoped-for breakthrough in terms of parliamentary seats. In 1988 the two parties merged to create (after a number of name changes) the Liberal Democrats. Over two-thirds of the members, and all the serving MPs, of the Liberal Party joined this party, led first by Steel and later by Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy. With the fading away of the ex-Labour element after 1992, this party is seen by many continuation of the old Liberal Party under a new name, and some of its MPs and many of its rank-and-file continue to refer to themselves simply as Liberals. However others argue that the Liberal Democrats do not always follow traditional Liberal policies, whilst in terms of personalities they argue that both Paddy Ashdown (who was closer to the SDP than the Liberals on several matters) and Charles Kennedy (who was an SDP not a Liberal MP) are not old-style Liberals. Although the Liberal Democrats retain both the ethos and policies of the old Liberals in local and regional government and continue to be seen as centrists, in Parliament they are seen as to the left of the Labour Party. This is primarily due to Labour's move to the right under Tony Blair, but is also the result of the Lib Dems under Charles Kennedy more strongly supporting the public sector against privatisation, and maintaining traditional Liberal opposition to militarism in the face of Labour and Conservative support for the War in Iraq.

The post 1988 Liberal Party

A group of Liberal opponents of the merger, including Michael Meadowcroft formerly Liberal MP for Leeds West and Dr Paul Wiggin who served on Peterborough City Council as a Liberal, continued under the old name of "the Liberal Party"; this was legally a new organisation (the headquarters, records, assets and debts of the old party were inherited by the Liberal Democrats), but its constitution asserts it to be the same party as that which had previously existed. (Ironically, they also gave help to the rump Jack Holmes led SDP after its official disbandment in 1990) It has a handful of local councillors, though its annual assembly scarcely attracts more than a hundred members, and it has never been a serious contender to win seats in the House of Commons. That said, the fact the party lives on is testament to one of the greatest strengths of the Liberal tradition as a whole in the UK - its ability to produce an active membership to make up for a lack of resources. In the West Country (ie Devon & Cornwall) and in Liverpool the Liberal Party can still stand a near full slate of candidates at elections, whilst in other areas such as Peterborough, Slough & Wyre Forest (Worcestershire), the party has returned three councillors regularly for over a decade. The party's current HQ is in Liverpool, though its major base of operations remains its West Country stronghold (a traditional stronghold of Liberalism, whether Liberal or Liberal Democrat).

Liberal leaders 1859-1988

Liberal Leaders in the House of Lords, 1859-1916
- Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville 1859-1865
- John Russell, 1st Earl Russell 1865-1868
- Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville 1868-1891
- John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley 1891-1894
- Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery 1894-1896
- John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley 1896-1902
- George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon 1902-1908
- Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe 1908-1916 Liberal Leaders in the House of Commons, 1859-1916
- Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston 1859-1865
- William Ewart Gladstone 1865-1875
- Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington 1875-1880
- William Ewart Gladstone 1880-1894
- Sir William Vernon Harcourt 1894-1899
- Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 1899-1908
- Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1925) 1908-1916 Leaders of the Liberal Party, 1916-1988
- Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1925) 1916-1926
  - Donald Maclean, Acting Leader 1919-1922
- David Lloyd George 1926-1931
- Sir Herbert Samuel 1931-1935
- Sir Archibald Sinclair 1935-1945
- Clement Davies 1945-1956
- Jo Grimond 1956-1967
- Jeremy Thorpe 1967-1976
- Jo Grimond 1976
- David Steel 1976-1988

See also


- Liberalism:
- Contributions to liberal theory
- Liberalism worldwide
- List of liberal parties
- Liberal democracy
- Liberalism in the United Kingdom
- Politics of the United Kingdom
- UK topics

External links


- [http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/ Liberal Democrat History Group]

References

Chris Cook, A Short History of the Liberal Party, 1900-2001 (6th edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002. ISBN 0-333-91838-X. Jonathan Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain. Yale, 1993.ISBN 0-300-06718-6. Category:Defunct political parties in the United Kingdom United Kingdom 1860s

United Kingdom general election, 1922

The UK general election of 1922 was held on 15th November 1922. It was the first election held after Southern Ireland left the United Kingdom, and was won by Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives, who gained an overall majority over Labour, led by John Clynes and Herbert Henry Asquith's Liberals. The Liberal Party were split between the "National Liberals" following David Lloyd George and the "Liberals" following Asquith. However, some candidates stood calling for a reunited Liberal party whilst others appear to have backed both Asquith and Lloyd George. Few sources are able to agree on exact numbers, and even in contemporary records held by the two groups some MPs were claimed for both sides.

Results

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David Lloyd George

The Right Honourable David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor,