This chapter analyses in detail two parliamentary elections in Dundee, the general election of 1906 and the by-election of 1908. Elections are, of course, always occasions when political arguments are articulated and mobilised exceptionally intensively. But beyond this, these two elections are especially important in helping to understand the responses of Dundonians to the dilemmas they faced in responding to the challenges of globalisation and imperial competition. The 1906 election brought into the Westminster Parliament one of the first two Labour MPs in Scotland, Alexander Wilkie, the first break in Liberal representation in Dundee since 1832. This apparent seismic shift in electoral politics enables us to examine some of the underpinnings of political allegiance in the city. The by-election of 1908 was won by Winston Churchill for the Liberals, defeating a Labour candidate. We can examine this victory especially to see what it can tell us about the strengths and weaknesses of Dundee Liberalism as it grappled with the challenges to the city, while fighting off the advance of Labour.

The national context of the 1906 election was the decline of the Conservative government, which had won a huge majority in 1900, in the face of the divisions caused by Chamberlain's revival of the issue of protection. The Liberals came to office at the end of 1905, and called a general election which was fought in January 1906. The outcome of the election was one of the most sweeping electoral reversals in twentieth-century Britain, comparable only to 1945 and 1997. The Liberals emerged with a majority of 241 over the Conservatives and their allies. The other striking feature of the election was the success of forty-six Labour candidates, facilitated by the ‘Lib-Lab pact’ which gave a significant number of Labour candidates a straight run against Conservative or Unionist candidates, with no Liberal being put forward. However, this pact did not apply in Scotland, and in Dundee the Labour candidate finished second in the poll, sandwiched between two Liberals.

The central political issue of the election nationally was free trade versus protection, though other issues between the Liberals and the Conservatives and Unionists which had prominence in the election included, especially, the importing of Chinese labour into the Rand in South Africa.