evolutionary democratic path. The tradition of
parliament, the impartial administration of the
law and civic freedoms of the individual were too
deeply embedded in the British way of life to be
overthrown by any authoritarian movement. But,
within the constitutional framework the struggle
for ‘social justice’ increased. Working people
demanded the satisfaction of basic economic
rights; they called for state intervention to assure
them of these rights should this prove necessary;
they wanted work, a decent wage and adequate
support for themselves and their families when
out of work or unable to work due to sickness;
they expected the ending of bad housing and, as
they became increasingly aware of their disadvan-
taged position in society, a better future for their
children. Industry, the manufacturers and the
mine owners all looked back to before the war
and wanted to be rid of all wartime government
control and direction, though not subsidies when
forthcoming.
The majority of the Conservatives believed in
market forces to remedy the economic difficul-
ties, in sound money and in a balanced budget.
Government’s business in the direct control of
industry, they believed, was to divest itself as
rapidly as possible of such controls as had been
brought in during the war. The Labour Party had
scarcely begun in the 1920s to translate socialist
aspirations into practical policies. That work was
not done until the 1940s. Meanwhile the Labour
Party knew clearly what it did not want: commu-
nism on the Russian model. The small British
Communist Party was refused affiliation to the
Labour Party and in the mid-1920s communists
could no longer be individual members of the
Labour Party. The Labour Party, supported by the
Trades Union Congress, sought power within the
constitution knowing that to be tainted with com-
munism would drive away moderate political sup-
port. It became the main opposition party, and
held office on its own twice during this period,
briefly in 1924 as a minority government and from
1929 until the financial debacle of 1931.
Labour prospered on the decay of the once
great Liberal Party. The Liberal Party had lost its
identity, its reforming policies absorbed by the
Conservatives to the right, with Labour to the left
offering a dynamic alternative to Conservative
rule. The working man’s vote in the industrial
towns swung to Labour; many Liberal supporters
deserted liberalism for the Conservatives, giving
the latter an almost unbroken hold of power in the
inter-war years. The Liberals in the post-war years
had neither great national causes nor political
leaders who could command a mass personal fol-
lowing as Gladstone had once done. Lloyd
George appeared the obvious candidate, the man
through whose energy and leadership Britain’s
war effort had been galvanised to victory; Lloyd
George had then become a leader on the world
stage at the Paris Peace Conference. His standing
in 1919 was, indeed, high. As prime minister of a
coalition government of those Liberals who fol-
lowed him and the Conservatives, the elections of
December 1918 gave the Conservative–Lloyd
Georgian Liberal coalition parties a landslide vic-
tory. The Liberals under Asquith, who opposed
them, won no more than twenty-eight seats.
Labour, with 2.3 million votes and sixty-three
seats, for the first time became the main opposi-
tion party. This election marked a profound
change in British politics. The results, moreover,
reflected a greatly enlarged electorate. For the first
time the vote was exercised by women over thirty;
having proven during the war that they could do
a man’s job on the land and in factories, women
could no longer be denied the vote.
For a time Lloyd George’s personal ascen-
dancy obscured the collapse of Liberal support in
the country. He had agreed with his coalition
partner, Andrew Bonar Law, the leader of the
Conservatives, that the Conservatives would
support 159 Liberal candidates, and the majority,
133, were elected as a result. Nevertheless, the
Conservatives predominated over Lloyd Georgian
Liberals in the coalition by almost three to one.
This meant Lloyd George was at the mercy of
Conservative support. They would drop him for
a Conservative leader when he ceased to be an
electoral asset. And that is what they did in 1922.
An immediate problem facing post-war Britain
was Ireland. ‘Home rule’ was no longer enough
for the Irish nationalists, whose cause had been
spectacularly enhanced by the Easter rising in
Dublin in 1916. Sinn Féin fought the general